it's really easy to make 60% of your population commit a felony. you just continue to pass laws with the assumption that draconian punishments deter crime. and you keep making lesser and lesser crimes felonies, and punishments harsher, and you can have judges who just want to funnel people into prison to fund their own personal investments. it also helps to have corrupt cops that want to make those felony collars to get promotions and raises. cops literally train each other to escalate things to felonies or find felony charges where clearly none should exist like calling a box cutter a 'gravity knife' and charging a felony and if that person isn't hiring a quality lawyer the public defender with 600 cases says 'you have 15 min of my time for this case, I glanced at it, I recommend you take a plea deal, our time is up, what's your decision?'