February 15, 2007

Still Fewer “Criminals” in the Army Than in Your Neighborhood Bar

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For years now, the Army has been stretching to keep its numbers up by compromising everything from enlistment standards to the quality of new recruits to the character of recruiters themselves. As Peter points out below, today’s New York Times now warns us about the rash of waivers being given to incoming soldiers. Salon posted this snarky response under the headline “Need more recruits for Iraq? Take more criminals”:

The good news: As the Times explains, “soldiers with criminal histories made up only” — only! — “11.7 percent of the Army recruits in 2006.”

There are 52 million individuals in the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System criminal history database; that’s about 17% of Americans who’ve been in trouble for some crime at some point in their lives. So the percentage of recruits with criminal histories, less than 12%, is lower than that of the general population with criminal histories.

Moreover, people with criminal records don’t equal lifetime criminals; working at a bank two years ago doesn’t make you a teller any more than having sold pot in college makes you a dealer. It’s not enough that ex-cons face employment discrimination and legal restrictions on where they can live in some states. The public is, evidently, so opposed to letting them establish legitimate lives that we don’t even want them doing it in a war zone six thousand miles away.

—Nicole McClelland

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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