Felonization
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The act of criminalizing an act as a felony. uncountable
"[…] felonization of nonviolent offenses has required extensive new construction of prisons, which involves large government contracts with private companies."
- 2 The act of making somebody into a felon. uncountable
"With an avalanche of state-based initiatives to reform the criminal justice system, it is easy to ignore happenings at the federal level. Unfortunately, the felonization of America continues virtually unnoticed. Federal statutes with vast reach put millions of Americans at risk of being fined or imprisoned, with much damage already done. Cambridge Attorney Harvey Silverglate has thoroughly documented this federal over-criminalization, and his conclusions are frightening. Silverglate estimates that the average American commits three felonies a day!"
Example
More examples"[…] felonization of nonviolent offenses has required extensive new construction of prisons, which involves large government contracts with private companies."
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.