By Roger Roots, J.D., Ph.D.
SHAME ON THE NEW YORK TIMES!!! On March 31, 2026 the NYT Editorial Board unleashed an opinion piece overloaded with smears against former January 6 defendants. This op-ed will go down as one of the most deceptive in history. NYT says “at least twelve” (of 1,500) J6ers have been “charged” with new crimes since being pardoned. This includes protest-related vandalism, a “brief detention” for scuffling with protestors at a press conference. violating a family court order and resisting arrest. That’s an arrest rate of EIGHT-TENTHS OF ONE % per year (actually 14 months) for J6ers.
But according to ChatGPT, around 2-3% of adults are arrested each year. And of course, all arrestees tend to be disproportionately male; almost FOUR PERCENT of adult MALES are arrested each year. Note that the “twelve” J6ers highlighted in the NYT essay are all males (and well over 90% of all pardoned J6ers are males.)
These stats are far more significant when one considers ex-convicts. About FOURTY-THREE PERCENT of released inmates are re-arrested for new crimes within the first year. HALF are re-arrested within 18 months!
This means that pardoned J6ers ARE FAR MORE LAW-ABIDING than the average American. Indeed the average American is something like FIVE TIMES MORE LIKELY than the average J6er to be arrested!!!!! And the average former prisoner is well over 53 TIMES MORE LIKELY to be arrested than the average pardoned J6er!!!
The 1,500 pardoned J6ers may be the most law-abiding cohort of the U.S. population. They are almost certainly the most law-abiding large cohort of former inmates ever released from the American criminal justice system.
