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cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/48227562
According to Wikipedia we're number 5. Below beloved socialist paradise Cuba for the record.
All of these countries should be ashamed.
It's worse than that.
First, is it correct that US has lost the top spot in the last 3 years. But this only counts prison population.
The US parole and probation system is twice as big as the prison system. Under the parole and probation system people are monitored by cops regularly, their wages are garnished, they have obligations to report to court, to officers, to the state.
That means the criminal justice system in the US is managing criminals at 3x the per capita rate as any other country. Sure, the prison population ebbs and flows a little, other countries edge higher temporarily, but the US total system is massive beyond belief.
Then there's recidivism. The US is in the top tier for recidivism rates. There are a few other countries that compete with the USA, like UK and Brazil. But none of them couple their high recidivism rate with the massive incarceration rate nor with the gargantuan parole and probation rate.
And then there's pay-to-stay. In the US a large portion of prisonerd are levied a day rate for being in prison, between $100 and $400 depending on the state. No one else does this. People leave prison with a massive debt to the state, which is why the end up on parole or probation, and why their post-incarceration wages are garnished.
It's a brutally sick system. That dwarfs everything in existence, even if some other systems come close on a single metric.
All true but I'm not sure I believe other oppressive nations don't have similar issues that aren't directly captured in the incarceration rate alone.
Oh totally. The oppressive country of the USA, as an example, has a maternal death rate and life expectancy both lower than Cuba. Cuba has a lung cancer vaccine that the US refused to allow for its citizens. And Cuba also has a higher literacy rate. And it does all that while under the most oppressive sanctions in the world.
I do agree that the Cuban medical system is impressive. I just wish they would not lock up so many people. Would make their system as a whole a lot more interesting if they had actual political freedoms.
Political freedoms come with a cost. For example, Iran had democratic political freedoms, and then the US and UK exploited those freedoms to launch a coup and rob the country. So when the Iranians finally likes them out again, they did so with the awareness that they couldn't just do another liberal democracy with political freedom, they actually had to clamp down in order to prevent losing their country again.
Cuba is in the same predicament. Political freedom when you're under a siege is very very difficult. The number of times the US tried to assassinate Cuban leaders alone is the reason for tighter political controls, but the US has also spent billions of dollars on propaganda and covert ops to overthrow Cuba and return it to the control of American organized crime. And it's even worse than the Iran situation because the US literally has a covert ops military torture prison on Cuba from which to launch, coordinate, and monitor any campaign of any type.
You wouldn't expect a city under medieval siege to have broad political freedoms, why would we expect weaker nations founded on anti-imperialism to have broad political freedoms when under active siege by the most psychotic beligerents in the world?