If you were to place New York City on Mars, you could have its population density be any value you want simply by expanding its political borders. When compari

If you were to place New York City on Mars, you could have its population density be any value you want simply by expanding its political borders. When comparing countries, it's the distribution that matters. If I have 50 people spread throughout my house, or 50 people shoved into a single room in my house, my house will have the same population density, but in the latter case I'll have 50 pretty irritable people. The same is true for a country. Take Canada: It's population density is quite low, but that doesn't paint a very accurate picture of living conditions, since the vast majority of the population lives within a much smaller region along the US border. In any case, I agree with the sibling that population density is not the statistic the GP is using in support of his position. He is using prisoner per capita, which is 3x higher for Brazil than Norway and surely has at least some effect on the ability of Brazil to treat its prisoners in the same way.