9 ms·

How could a country with the largest prison population in the world not fall into at least some definition of authoritarian?

VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
Because USA doesn't execute prisoners at the rate China or Russia does
- munk-a 7y ago
  Those prisoners are being deprived of their lives - and I'd guess in many times wrongly since the US incarcerates twice as many people per capita than Russia or China.
  - caseysoftware 7y ago
    Do you believe the figures Russia and China publish? Alternatively, if a country had a high rate of executions and/or "disappearing" people, what would happen to that country's incarceration rate? Alternatively, is the term "incarceration" only applied to people convicted of a crime? Would re-education camps count towards the incarceration rate?
    - munk-a 7y ago
      Sorry I missed including my source, here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... (and yes, it's probably got a quite high inaccuracy, but there aren't other easy to ingest sources I found)
      - maqp 7y ago
        US has basically modernized slavery with the for-profit prison system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHz2Hmq7soo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHz2Hmq7soo
        Jamwinner 7y ago
        I see this a lot. I am conflicted. On one hand, guards, staff,etc need to be paid. Someone being a criminal should not put extra burden on the rest of us, and our social services. Many for-profit prisons are incentivized to better serve than state-run institutions. On the other hand, many prisons, private and otherwise, seem to play dirty rent-seeking bs with insanely low conpensation for work done, exorbiant fees for calling, visiting,or even emailing family, and systematic mismanagement. Clearly there is a way to optimize this system, and both profit, and improve lives. Maybe someone here has a vision.
        munk-a 7y ago
        > Someone being a criminal should not put extra burden on the rest of us, and our social services, I disagree with this, criminals shouldn't place extreme burden on society, but it's our job to deal with rehabilitating them - it's a societal choice, some societies over time have forced capital punishments on any law breakers and our modern society tries to rehabilitate them.
  - throwaway_tech 7y ago
    >and I'd guess in many times wrongly since the US incarcerates twice as many people per capita than Russia or China. That's a very interesting theory. How is it you conclude the US vs Russia/China prison population is indicative of the US wrongly incarcerating "many people?" The current estimates say US wrongful conviction sits around 2-10% with an 85% conviction rate overall, meanwhile Russia has 99%+ conviction rate overall (suggesting far more corruption and wrongful convictions) and China it is estimated 90% of crimes go unreported due to general mistrust of the system. Based on US crime rates, the majority of violent and property crimes go unsolved...hell I think murder cases are around 60% unsolved...so how exactly is it: 1) US many times wrongly imprison people; and 2) Russia/China prison population have any connection to this conclusion?
    - munk-a 7y ago
      I would guess that the rate of criminal activity in the world is relatively flat until you start introducing factors like political instability. My optimism would say that the US is probably on par with China in terms of providing a stable society, and both of them are miles ahead of Russia. The US may not be as stable as some of the European countries but the netherlands has an incarceration rate of 61/100,000 while the US has 655/100,000 this is all according to the rough numbers up on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...
      - ctvo 7y ago
        How is comparing incarceration rate relevant to this discussion when countries have differing laws? People aren't wrongly imprisoned if they've broken agreed upon laws, especially in a democratic society where popularly elected officials pass the laws. If society Z passed a law with a minimum three year prison sentence for jaywalking (pedestrian crossing a street without the right of away provided by a traffic signal), the incarceration rate may rise, but no one is wrongly imprisoned. (replace with the war on drugs in the US, of course).
        munk-a 7y ago
- geogra4 7y ago
  Do you have numbers to back that up?
- ElFitz 7y ago
  Does that make democracy a throttled authoritarian government?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- amaccuish 7y ago
  Russia doesn't execute prisoners? Source: https://lenta.ru/news/2009/11/19/death/ https://lenta.ru/news/2009/11/19/death/
wolco 7y ago
The government is elected by the people, it doesn't fit that definition. An authoritarian type of government is a government that is in power by force. Democracy and slavary existed together. Having a prison population 1 in 125 people doesn't matter because the people decided to elect someone to make that decision.
- ElFitz 7y ago
  > The government is elected by the people, it doesn't fit that definition. Is it though? First rebuttal that comes to mind is that, in the US, one can legally be elected without the having the majority of the counter, valid, votes. Another one would be that one can be elected without the approval of the majority of the people who could vote.
  - pathseeker 7y ago
    >Is it though? First rebuttal that comes to mind is that, in the US, one can legally be elected without the having the majority of the counter, valid, votes. Yes, spend a couple of moments reading up on the EC. The rules haven't changed in a long time. Even if you don't like it, that's only how the president is elected. Federal representatives for the state are elected by getting the most votes in a district. >Another one would be that one can be elected without the approval of the majority of the people who could vote. Every election system that allows more than two candidates or allows people to skip voting has this flaw.
    - kuzimoto 7y ago
      > Every election system that allows more than two candidates or allows people to skip voting has this flaw. It's not even necessarily a flaw. It's good because it allows the minority a chance to not have certain views crammed on to them by the majority. Just people a larger amount of people agree to a certain set of ideas, doesn't mean everyone does or has to. Densely populated areas have an advantage and likely different views to rural areas. What's best for one group might not be best for the other.
    - 7y ago
throwaway_tech 7y ago
>How could a country with the largest prison population in the world not fall into at least some definition of authoritarian? Because the prison population isn't comprised of political prisoners at the will of the federal government. The vast majority of prisoners are there as a result of violating state level crimes by State prosecutors...having nothing to do with political opinions. Is there a actual reason you define the country with the largest prison population as necessarily authoritarian?
- ericns 7y ago
  You're wrong, all drug offenders are political prisoners. The violent one were just more willing defend their human rights. How do you square treatment of Sackler vs Guzman?
  - pathseeker 7y ago
    So prisoners in prison for breaking laws passed and continuously supported by a democratically elected government are now "political prisoners"? That makes every prisoner a political prisoner.
  - throwaway_tech 7y ago
    >You're wrong, all drug offenders are political prisoners. Without any support for that statement, it comes of as...pretty authoritarian. As in you are right and everyone else is wrong. It also doesn't explain why the country with the most prisons is by definition authoritarian...especially when its supported with an unrelated statement about drug offenders, which is applicable to every other country in the World. It seems you just want to call nations of laws, authoritarian governments, because you know...they have laws.
    - SturgeonsLaw 7y ago
      “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” - John Ehrlichman, domestic advisor to President Nixon https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/
pathseeker 7y ago
> How could a country with the largest prison population in the world not fall into at least some definition of authoritarian? Because authoritarianism has nothing to do with prison population.
maxk42 7y ago
The US is the third-largest nation by population. It stands to reason its prison population should be in the top three. China executes many of its prisoners. India lacks infrastructure. Most US prisoners are imprisoned at state jails -- not federal facilities. In fact the rate of incarceration at the state and local level combined is about 10x the federal incarceration rate. If you think it's too high, you've got to lobby your state government. The federal prison rate is actually much lower than that of other developed nations such as Switzerland, Germany, and France.
- Ozzie_osman 7y ago
  China has 1.7m prisoners and executes single-digit thousands each year. With those numbers, the fact that it "executes many of its prisoners" is immaterial for its incarceration rate vs the US (maybe those China #s aren't accurate, I can't be sure).
  - maxk42 7y ago
    China also has "re-education camps". The numbers are unknown but the estimate for the Xinjiang re-education camps alone are estimated to hold 1.5 million. [1] So I doubt the 1.7 million number -- or, if accurate, it must discount China's various "re-education" camps and other involuntary political holding facilities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps
    - Ozzie_osman 7y ago
      Sure. I'm not defending China or taking these numbers at face value. But even if the 1.5m in Xinjiang is true, China is still significantly below the US in terms of incarceration rate. And it's sad that that's the comparison we're making.
    - SahAssar 7y ago
      I wouldn't trust the china stats either, but looking at a stats like these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... I think it's still clear that USA is a outlier and that this is a problem.
kuzimoto 7y ago
Could it be that there are more opportunities in the US for criminals to make money, hence a higher prison population? The US has the third largest population and highest GDP.
lainga 7y ago
Well, what if there was a country with fifty quintillion people and a hundred million prisoners?

VWWHFSfQ 7y ago

Because USA doesn't execute prisoners at the rate China or Russia does

munk-a 7y ago
Those prisoners are being deprived of their lives - and I'd guess in many times wrongly since the US incarcerates twice as many people per capita than Russia or China.
- caseysoftware 7y ago
  Do you believe the figures Russia and China publish? Alternatively, if a country had a high rate of executions and/or "disappearing" people, what would happen to that country's incarceration rate? Alternatively, is the term "incarceration" only applied to people convicted of a crime? Would re-education camps count towards the incarceration rate?
  - munk-a 7y ago
    Sorry I missed including my source, here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... (and yes, it's probably got a quite high inaccuracy, but there aren't other easy to ingest sources I found)
    - maqp 7y ago
      US has basically modernized slavery with the for-profit prison system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHz2Hmq7soo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHz2Hmq7soo
      - Jamwinner 7y ago
        I see this a lot. I am conflicted. On one hand, guards, staff,etc need to be paid. Someone being a criminal should not put extra burden on the rest of us, and our social services. Many for-profit prisons are incentivized to better serve than state-run institutions. On the other hand, many prisons, private and otherwise, seem to play dirty rent-seeking bs with insanely low conpensation for work done, exorbiant fees for calling, visiting,or even emailing family, and systematic mismanagement. Clearly there is a way to optimize this system, and both profit, and improve lives. Maybe someone here has a vision.
        munk-a 7y ago
        > Someone being a criminal should not put extra burden on the rest of us, and our social services, I disagree with this, criminals shouldn't place extreme burden on society, but it's our job to deal with rehabilitating them - it's a societal choice, some societies over time have forced capital punishments on any law breakers and our modern society tries to rehabilitate them.
- throwaway_tech 7y ago
  >and I'd guess in many times wrongly since the US incarcerates twice as many people per capita than Russia or China. That's a very interesting theory. How is it you conclude the US vs Russia/China prison population is indicative of the US wrongly incarcerating "many people?" The current estimates say US wrongful conviction sits around 2-10% with an 85% conviction rate overall, meanwhile Russia has 99%+ conviction rate overall (suggesting far more corruption and wrongful convictions) and China it is estimated 90% of crimes go unreported due to general mistrust of the system. Based on US crime rates, the majority of violent and property crimes go unsolved...hell I think murder cases are around 60% unsolved...so how exactly is it: 1) US many times wrongly imprison people; and 2) Russia/China prison population have any connection to this conclusion?
  - munk-a 7y ago
    I would guess that the rate of criminal activity in the world is relatively flat until you start introducing factors like political instability. My optimism would say that the US is probably on par with China in terms of providing a stable society, and both of them are miles ahead of Russia. The US may not be as stable as some of the European countries but the netherlands has an incarceration rate of 61/100,000 while the US has 655/100,000 this is all according to the rough numbers up on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...
    - ctvo 7y ago
      How is comparing incarceration rate relevant to this discussion when countries have differing laws? People aren't wrongly imprisoned if they've broken agreed upon laws, especially in a democratic society where popularly elected officials pass the laws. If society Z passed a law with a minimum three year prison sentence for jaywalking (pedestrian crossing a street without the right of away provided by a traffic signal), the incarceration rate may rise, but no one is wrongly imprisoned. (replace with the war on drugs in the US, of course).
      - munk-a 7y ago
geogra4 7y ago
Do you have numbers to back that up?
ElFitz 7y ago
Does that make democracy a throttled authoritarian government?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
amaccuish 7y ago
Russia doesn't execute prisoners? Source: https://lenta.ru/news/2009/11/19/death/ https://lenta.ru/news/2009/11/19/death/

wolco 7y ago

The government is elected by the people, it doesn't fit that definition. An authoritarian type of government is a government that is in power by force. Democracy and slavary existed together. Having a prison population 1 in 125 people doesn't matter because the people decided to elect someone to make that decision.

ElFitz 7y ago
> The government is elected by the people, it doesn't fit that definition. Is it though? First rebuttal that comes to mind is that, in the US, one can legally be elected without the having the majority of the counter, valid, votes. Another one would be that one can be elected without the approval of the majority of the people who could vote.
- pathseeker 7y ago
  >Is it though? First rebuttal that comes to mind is that, in the US, one can legally be elected without the having the majority of the counter, valid, votes. Yes, spend a couple of moments reading up on the EC. The rules haven't changed in a long time. Even if you don't like it, that's only how the president is elected. Federal representatives for the state are elected by getting the most votes in a district. >Another one would be that one can be elected without the approval of the majority of the people who could vote. Every election system that allows more than two candidates or allows people to skip voting has this flaw.
  - kuzimoto 7y ago
    > Every election system that allows more than two candidates or allows people to skip voting has this flaw. It's not even necessarily a flaw. It's good because it allows the minority a chance to not have certain views crammed on to them by the majority. Just people a larger amount of people agree to a certain set of ideas, doesn't mean everyone does or has to. Densely populated areas have an advantage and likely different views to rural areas. What's best for one group might not be best for the other.
  - 7y ago

throwaway_tech 7y ago

>How could a country with the largest prison population in the world not fall into at least some definition of authoritarian? Because the prison population isn't comprised of political prisoners at the will of the federal government. The vast majority of prisoners are there as a result of violating state level crimes by State prosecutors...having nothing to do with political opinions. Is there a actual reason you define the country with the largest prison population as necessarily authoritarian?

ericns 7y ago
You're wrong, all drug offenders are political prisoners. The violent one were just more willing defend their human rights. How do you square treatment of Sackler vs Guzman?
- pathseeker 7y ago
  So prisoners in prison for breaking laws passed and continuously supported by a democratically elected government are now "political prisoners"? That makes every prisoner a political prisoner.
- throwaway_tech 7y ago
  >You're wrong, all drug offenders are political prisoners. Without any support for that statement, it comes of as...pretty authoritarian. As in you are right and everyone else is wrong. It also doesn't explain why the country with the most prisons is by definition authoritarian...especially when its supported with an unrelated statement about drug offenders, which is applicable to every other country in the World. It seems you just want to call nations of laws, authoritarian governments, because you know...they have laws.
  - SturgeonsLaw 7y ago
    “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” - John Ehrlichman, domestic advisor to President Nixon https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/

pathseeker 7y ago

> How could a country with the largest prison population in the world not fall into at least some definition of authoritarian? Because authoritarianism has nothing to do with prison population.

maxk42 7y ago

The US is the third-largest nation by population. It stands to reason its prison population should be in the top three. China executes many of its prisoners. India lacks infrastructure. Most US prisoners are imprisoned at state jails -- not federal facilities. In fact the rate of incarceration at the state and local level combined is about 10x the federal incarceration rate. If you think it's too high, you've got to lobby your state government. The federal prison rate is actually much lower than that of other developed nations such as Switzerland, Germany, and France.

Ozzie_osman 7y ago
China has 1.7m prisoners and executes single-digit thousands each year. With those numbers, the fact that it "executes many of its prisoners" is immaterial for its incarceration rate vs the US (maybe those China #s aren't accurate, I can't be sure).
- maxk42 7y ago
  China also has "re-education camps". The numbers are unknown but the estimate for the Xinjiang re-education camps alone are estimated to hold 1.5 million. [1] So I doubt the 1.7 million number -- or, if accurate, it must discount China's various "re-education" camps and other involuntary political holding facilities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps
  - Ozzie_osman 7y ago
    Sure. I'm not defending China or taking these numbers at face value. But even if the 1.5m in Xinjiang is true, China is still significantly below the US in terms of incarceration rate. And it's sad that that's the comparison we're making.
  - SahAssar 7y ago
    I wouldn't trust the china stats either, but looking at a stats like these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... I think it's still clear that USA is a outlier and that this is a problem.

kuzimoto 7y ago

Could it be that there are more opportunities in the US for criminals to make money, hence a higher prison population? The US has the third largest population and highest GDP.

lainga 7y ago

Well, what if there was a country with fifty quintillion people and a hundred million prisoners?