a kind and gentle nation

April 23, 2008

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners. ...Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences. ... The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, according to data maintained by the International Center for Prison Studies at King’s College London. ...The United States comes in first, too, on a more meaningful list from the prison studies center, the one ranked in order of the incarceration rates. It has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.) The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close is Russia, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. The others have much lower rates. England’s rate is 151; Germany’s is 88; and Japan’s is 63. ... Inded, said Vivin Stern, a research fellow at the prison studies center in London, the American incarceration rate has made the United States “a rogue state, a country that has made a decision not to follow what is a normal Western approach.” ... “The U.S. pursues the war on drugs with an ignorant fanaticism,” said Ms. Stern of King’s College. ... Sweden imprisons about 80 people per 100,000 of population; Minnesota, about 300; and Texas, almost 1,000. Maine has the lowest incarceration rate in the United States, at 273; and Louisiana the highest, at 1,138.--NYT A1