criminals

When my brother was little he put a banana skin in the bathroom bin. We only put food waste in the kitchen bin, and my mum said he had to put his banana skins there in future. My brother got really worried and asked "Why is it against the law?" Even though we reassured him he was worried all that day that he would be put in jail!

AMT

I used to believe that "Prosecuted" meant "Executed". When someone said they were prosecuted, I thought they were gonna die.

Anon

I used to believe that the search lights that you can see from the airport at night sometimes meant that a criminal had escaped from prison and the police were search for him. I entirely blame this one on my father, since he's the one that told me that! (I realize that HE knew it was a joke, but a five year old little girl certainly didn't!)

Kimberly

When I was about 8 I started "playing doctor" with the boy next door. A few years later I heard the term child molestor and when I found out what it meant I was terrified. I thought that "playing doctor" made me a child molestor and the police would find out my dirty secret and come drag me off to jail. I didn't realize that you have to be an adult in order to qualify.

erin

When I was 14 or 15 I used to believe that rape just meant anal sex, so I wondered why rapists were sent to jail. What was all the fuss about, different people like different things and they shouldn´t be punished for that!!! (I was corrected many (many) years after that..., i´m a lawyer now...)

Flower

I used to be confused about the concept of speeding tickets. I figured that about 99% of people just threw these away and were never bothered by them again. So when my mom got a ticket when I was little I volunteered to "throw it away during cleanup time"

Anon

I was told that criminals would sneak into the house at night and the only way they couldnt get me was if I stayed in my bed. this somehow morphed into me thinking that anytime my feet touched the ground at night I would get pulled under my bed by terrible criminals. even tho my bed was just a matress on the floor.

Maddie

One day, while my mother was driving I heard on the radio that there had been a shooting and that a certain man was helping the police with their investigations. I said to my mum "aww, that's nice". She nearly drove off the road through laughing so much. You see, I'm from Barbados, and the above phrase is used euphemistically to describe an arrest, whereas I thought some nice man from the village was taking the police around, introducing them to everyone etc

Andrea

I used to believe that (and ive never ever told anyone this before) if i ever got kidnapped, i would tell my kidnappers to read "where the red fern grows" i read that novel as a child and was very moved by it and i believed that it could turn any 'bad' person into a 'good' person. HA

JAN

when i was a lttle boy i used to believe
that metal detectors at airports could find out who was a bad person because older people told me that some persons tried to carry weapons on the plane.
so i assumed that everybody who was stopped at the security checks was a thief or murderer, even if they only had to unpack their backpack to show their personal stereos or whatsoever.

hans hansen

When the Yorkshire Ripper was still on the loose, I used to think that a prostitute was a woman who was once in jail.

Anon

When the news were talking about "movie pirates were arrested for camcording a movie in the theater," I thought that they meant pirates from the seas.

Anon

My parents used to use the phrase "naked as a jaybird". So when I first heard 'jay-walking' I thought they meant someone was walking down the street naked.

Deanna B.

I used to believe that suicide was a crime you could go to jail for because people would say "They commited suicide" like commiting a crime. I'm pretty sure I thought it was a combination of murder and robbery.

Spyke

When I was seven I tried to make a movie play on a TV at the store. The TV went off and made a loud noise and I ran away because I thought I was in trouble. A lot of store workers came to check out the TV. I thought they caught me on camera or something so the next day when I went to the pool and saw a police officer I thought he was looking for me. I went over bawling my eyes out and told him the whole thing. (oopse!!!)

Kuro Kumori

When i was little i used to beleive that the law was a big man with a white wig. i thought that if you had been bad you would have to go and talk to "the law".

Laia

I didn't realize that alcohol figured in "drinking and driving" at all - I just thought that you weren't allowed to drink anything because it was distracting and you couldn't keep both hands on the wheel while doing it.

Anon

When I was in 7th grade, during art class, me and my friends were painting and talking. I was telling them about this guy that went to jail for something stupid. I proclaimed he was a prostitute (rather loudly) and that he deserved it. I thought a prostitute was someone waiting to be prosecuted. Everyone in the class started giggling, even the teacher. I looked pretty perplexed obvioulsy, because my friend asked me if I knew what a prostitute was. I told her my definition, but when she was done telling me the real definition, I was pretty embarassed.

They still tease me about it to this day.

Yippee

That when crooks where caught they were taken to a town or place called "custody".

Alan

I thought bad people in real life all looked weird/ugly like on cartoons. For this reason I was confused when adults said not to talk to strangers since they might be bad people because couldn't you tell if someone was bad just by looking at them?

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