Okay okay, men men men.... I have a question....
Would you date a woman with... a criminal record? Dun dun dunnnnn
Meh. I have before. It depends on the crime, the severity of it, and how long it's been.
I broke up with my ex and won't go back to her, because she has no desire to stop using certain drugs.
As a result of her drug abuse, she's currently serving a lengthy sentence for stealing 3 cars while she was high, to be able to keep affording her drugs.
Of course, when they arrested her, she physically resisted and fought back, injuring a couple of the officers. Hence, the lengthy sentence.
She got out on parole with good behavior once, only to skip out on probation and leave town, so now she's back in again without possibility of parole.
I haven't talked to her, I stopped talking to her when she decided to start ******* her life up and stopped listening to me trying to guide her to a better life.
So I'm very well aware that addicts can become high profile thieves to get their fixes, I've no interest in that.
But if it's something bogus like petit retail theft from like 6 years ago or a DUI, or busted for cannabis or mushrooms, then generally speaking I don't really give a **** provided she's gotten her life back in order since.
--I should clarify, in America, getting arrested can very quickly, very easily completely destroy your life. It makes it significantly harder to get a job, or do basically anything that a functional adult would be able to do. Records here, depending upon the state you live in, are sometimes publicly accessible, and employers and landlords will both run background checks wherein your arrest record will come up if it isn't publicly accessible and you can be denied a job or a lease based upon your criminal past. You can get your record expunged, but there's a process to that, and with the rise of the internet if you're in a state where your arrest record is public access, private companies will copy your arrest record information over so even though you've gotten it legally expunged, these private companies will charge you a crapload of money to have it removed from their public website listings as well.
Actually, people that get arrested here have it pretty damn hard, I've known a handful of people with criminal records for different things. MOST of it is just drug related, tbh, some though are what get called "career criminals," or repeat offenders who've been arrested so much that they can't make a living to survive with regular jobs so they make a living through illegal activities instead. --Actually, I'm related to one such person, he's out of prison, but he's not allowed to leave the state he's in via probation for another couple of years. I don't think he's coming back at all though, he's sober now and met a girl up there, his life is better now and he's happier up there with her than he would be down here with his family.
There's a stigmatization about criminals that's unfortunate. A lot of the time, they're not bad people, they're troubled people who made bad mistakes. While it is true that there's some that just don't ever want to stop because it's their lifestyle choice, it's also true that a lot of people really only just **** up hard that one time and straighten themselves out thereafter purely because of how much of a pain in the ass it is just to get your life back on track again after. I can damn sure speak to their work ethic in the workforce, I've worked with a lot of them and some of those people are the most dedicated workers there are because they're trying to fix their lives.