zlacker

Pretty sure it's uniquely a USA issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...

>>danesp+(OP)
Right you are. The US has 5% of the world's population, and 25% of the world's incarcerated population. Per capita, more than China, Iran, N Korea.

>>RBBron+51
In fact they're not right.

The parent is confusing criminal record with incarceration duration. The UK has nearly just as high of a criminal record ratio among adult men for example. The difference is the US assigns far longer incarceration times for the same crime vs the UK. Further, Europe as a whole has a higher crime rate than the US does. [1]

70 million jobs has plenty of room for international expansion accordingly.

"[2011] Contrary to common perceptions, today both property and violent crimes (with the exception of homicides) are more widespread in Europe than in the United States, while the opposite was true thirty years ago. We label this fact as the ‘reversal of misfortunes’."

[1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1889952

>>advent+y2
Great data. Thank you for sharing. The US is also the only country that employs solitary confinement for juvenile inmates.

>>advent+y2
Interesting paper. From the abstract: We find that the demographic structure of the population and the incarceration rate are important determinants of crime. Our results suggest that a tougher incarceration policy may be an effective way to contrast crime in Europe.

if i'm reading that right, they're suggesting that European incarceration policies/rates/sentences (or something) are too lenient (?). so, Europe has the opposite problem when compared to the US?

>>advent+y2
Thanks for citing your sources! Much appreciated

>>advent+y2
Yes, that happens when you lock up five times as many people per capita, crime goes down a bit. Hardly surprising, there's nothing mysterious as to why.

Keep in mind that the exploding US prison population started in the 1990s; 'thirty years ago' is before this happened.