Louisiana once again has the highest incarceration rate in the U.S., (Rates calculated per 100,000 people) unseating Oklahoma to return to its long-held position as “the world’s prison capital.” By comparison, states like New York and Massachusetts appear progressive, but even these states lock people up at higher rates than nearly every other country on earth. Compared to the rest of the world, every U.S. state relies too heavily on prisons and jails to respond to crime.
Looking at each state in the global context reveals that, in every region of the country, incarceration is out of step with the rest of the world.
If we imagine every state as an independent nation, every state appears extreme. 24 states would have the highest incarceration rate in the world — higher even than the United States. Massachusetts, the state with the lowest incarceration rate in the nation, would rank 17th in the world with an incarceration rate higher than Iran, Colombia, and all the founding NATO nations.
In fact, many of the countries that rank alongside the least punitive U.S. states, such as Turkey, Thailand, Rwanda, and Russia, have authoritarian governments or have recently experienced large-scale internal armed conflicts. Others struggle with “violent crime” on a scale far beyond that in the U.S.: South Africa, Panama, Costa Rica, and Brazil all have murder rates more than double that of the U.S. Yet the U.S., “the land of the free,” tops them all.
Even “progressive” states like Illinois, with incarceration rates below the national average, continue to lock people up at more than double the rates of our closest international allies
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Apparently, the US is populated by the worst people in the world. People so bad they have to be taken out of the gene pool for varying lengths of time.
And how many other civilized countries use private for profit prisons that spend millions of dollars on lobbying to keep the cash cow a milking…? I am just curious because I am not knowledgeable of how actual civilized countries operate as I do not live in one here in Texas.
America is obsessed with crime and punishment. It’s become a spectator sport of sorts. Just look at all the Ted Bundy docs, crime procedurals like Law and Order, SVU, Criminal Minds – that have been renewed season after season. Viewers take joy and pride in seeing those “lesser” than them being prosecuted, castigated and incarcerated which further feed society’s thirst for even more outrageous shows and stories to get off on all the salacious details
This self-propagating blood-thirst for vengeance doesn’t exist in the Norway prison and rehabilitation model which is far superior to that of America’s train wreck of justice.
United States home of Incarnations and with infatuations regarding sex, crime, and punitive punishment. We are the leaders of what not to do to f your country and it’s citizens.
There is something really wrong with hundreds of millions of people who live in America. Really wrong.
Are they part of the worst in the world? I don’t know. There are a lot of evil people in the world. But I’m really wondering how much lower my opinion of the worth of most who live in America can sink. What a bunch of human garbage.
Have we ever been a decent country? We came right from the civil rights violations of the 60s and 70s and jumped right into the Oppression Lists. Look at the past few years. Christ, what garbage. Now we have chosen to be in a pandemic and kill hundreds of thousands of our “fellow” citizens because we are self-entitled, self-righteous, know-it-all idiots.
Meh. Let’s get the rest of the national, public, lifetime Registries going. There is no possible way that the Sex Offense Registries make sense and we do not Register people who shoot people with guns or otherwise violently attack people and put their hands on them. Are we putting all “Americans” into Tiers or not?
The Oppression Lists have nothing to do with public safety or protecting children. Today, anyone who says they do is an idiot and/or a liar.
This country was built on rape, murder and human trafficking aka “slavery” America only made these laws to control themselves, every hero in America history would literally be sex offenders in today’s society for the crimes they committed against all those innocent BLACK women and children for hundreds of years. But like that movie The Purge America still has to satisfied their sick urge to oppress and control second class citizens, Segregation in this country didn’t end until 1954 that wasn’t even that long ago
Everything people forced to register are going through in this country is nothing new we all seen Martin Luther King and outher civil rights activists fight for second class citizens we saw people in the streets fighting for their civil rights back in 60s and 70s so if people forced to register for life ever wanna go free they better get up and stand up for their rights
Good luck