... if you want to disappear people and strip their rights away.
If you've been on the video-sharing sites for any length of time, you'll see a strange consensus shine through regardless of ideology (leftist, liberal, libertarian, conservative, right-wing chud, etc.) and that's this: Police suck at their jobs. The reasoning may shift - "wokeness run rampant", "overpolicing marginal areas", or what have you - but the end result is something almost al people can agree on: Police don't know the law (Or they know the law but it's less about lawlessness and more about authority. Either way...).
Knowing this, finding yourself on the wrong side of law enforcement is... tremendously easy. Far easier than some may notice without actually having committed a crime. Take, for instance, filming the police. It's not against the law (at least in most places: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/arizona-restrict-video-recording-police-aclu-lawsuit/671650/) but, say you're witnessing an in 'intense' interaction between police and another citizen and you decide to record. You're on the sidewalk; you're far enough away to not be interfering with police but they still take umbrage with you recording.
They give you orders. Put the phone away. Step back. Give space.
You know your rights, you follow along but keep your phone out until someone decides you're now in their crosshairs and you have a new, shiny pair of bracelets on your wrist and your phone is now confiscated. This isn't an exaggeration; it happens a lot in America where someone's authority gets tested and an arrest ensues. But, again, there's no crime against recording the police.
So they charge you with 'obstruction', 'failure to comply', 'resisting arrest' - any number of vague offenses that, at first blush, from an outside bystander, just seems like common procedure. But, again, you know your rights. You know you've not committed a crime. You've been on the internet long enough to have/see conversations about police brutality - don't resist and let the courts handle it. So you do that.
Except jail and the courts have one little wrinkle about them - proving your innocence is not in their best interest.
Getting out of jail/detainment and being stuck in a violent system is a matter, not of innocence or right & wrong, but of money. If you can pay your bail, whether you're ultimately innocent or not, you slip free from the bonds of the jail system. And if you can't afford it, then you end up being incapable of 'affording it'. Life isn't always about money. It's also about TIME. Americans are, by and large, living paycheck to paycheck - most of us can't afford a family emergency of just 400$ - so if you're detained, you're missing out on work, likely going to lose your job, likely to lose your form of transportation if it's not paid off and, largely, likely to lose your housing. Because you can't pay bail for an unlawful detainment.
But that's okay. The DA should be working for you because it's all about justice. Being unlawfully detained? That's not in their best interest, right? You can prove your innocence in court!
Except the vast, vast, VAST majority of convictions in the US are through a system of plea bargains: https://www.cato.org/commentary/prisons-are-packed-because-prosecutors-are-coercing-plea-deals-yes-its-totally-legal#
But... who would bargain away their freedom? Who would take a plea of guilt just to go home? Lots of people. In Rikers, for instance, the average length of stay for detainees is 120 days - 4 months. On average: https://www.cityandstateny.com/policy/2022/09/how-many-people-are-detained-rikers-look-crisis-numbers/377840/
Being unable to pay your bail, you're looking at 4 months of lost time whether you're guilty or not. 4 months of unpaid bills, rents/mortgages, car notes; 4 months being away from family and dependents whether a crime was committed or not. And that's an average - time likely can/will go beyond that. Some charges might even see you serve LESS time if you really WERE guilty. So when a slicked up DA comes to you and offers you a chance to leave if you just... say you did the crime - take the misdemeanor or even felony - you can go home TONIGHT.
Who wouldn't take it? Especially given how dangerous and, oftentimes LETHAL, places like Rikers - https://www.forbes.com/sites/zengernews/2023/01/12/inmate-deaths-threat-of-federal-takeover-will-determine-the-fate-of-rikers-island/?sh=21e4cb8a748c
So, to recap:
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Merely having an interaction with police runs you the risk of being detained/charged with any bevy of circular logic crimes ("You were resisting arrest"/"What was I being arrested for?") and an increased chance of these interactions if you live in a marginal/poor community which is intentionally and historically overpoliced and used as a means to bolster the coffers of the police state.
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Being detained, you'll likely get processed and placed in jail
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Jail is a violent system that seeks to steal your money or your time. If you can't afford it, you likely can't 'afford it'.
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A justice system more interested in getting a plea out of you than in proving your innocence and using the violence of the jail system to coerce a confession/plea out of you just to get back to your life
Which leads to...
ONE IN THREE AMERICANS WITH A CRIMINAL RECORD: https://www.sentencingproject.org/app/uploads/2022/08/Americans-with-Criminal-Records-Poverty-and-Opportunity-Profile.pdf
Millions of Americans disenfranchised (Despite having served their time and working/living/organizing within their communities. And, while this practice wasn't created specifically to target marginal communities of color; it disproportionately has been used against them): https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/locked-out-2022-estimates-of-people-denied-voting-rights/
And, yet, we have a society that will tell you, to your face, that people deserve this. That, if you want to avoid it, 'don't commit a crime'.