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People harp on China or North Korea being police states but the United States incarcerates more people per capita than any other nation by a significant margin.

People harp on China or North Korea being police states but the United States incarcerates more people per capita than any other nation by a significant margin. The US justice system is rife with discrimination and the prison conditions are dire (as you point out). People should absolutely not be extradited to the USA until this changes.

mc32 5y ago
We do incarcerate a lot, however, keep in mind some of it has to do with the dismantling of the equally problematic mental health institutions beginning in the late sixties. Lots of people who would better be served in psychiatric units are housed in regular prisons.
- throwaway4good 5y ago
  You also over-incarcerate black men by a factor of XXX - hardly you can use the excuse of lack of psychiatric units there.
  - mc32 5y ago
    How do you explain Cuba, Grenada, or Maldives? There are historical factors which contribute to higher incarceration rates (poor, lack of opportunity, unemployment benefits structures (unreported income does not affect eligibility), etc which contribute to higher probability of running afoul of criminal law. Moreover, you can see a marked increase from the '80s on. That strongly implies economic factors (in conjunction with Clinton's tough on crime agenda). What precipitates this is the hollowing out of American jobs overseas. No longer could a high school graduate live on the income afforded by a HS graduate. As people's in the lower socio-economic rungs saw decreasing purchasing power, few alternatives were available to them. Steel Mills closed down, Shoe factories, Clothing, the FT cleaning crew was replaced by low wage imported labor, etc. Some of the same reasons are seen in countries with populations of poor people. Belarus, Thailand, Bahamas, etc.
  - pkaye 5y ago
    Do they keep similar incareration statistics for UK, France, Germany, etc? I'd like to see if there is works there.
  - pkaye 5y ago
    Looks like UK has a similar over-incarceration disparity though. > People from BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) backgrounds constitute only 14% of the general population in England and Wales, but make up 25% of its prison population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_prison_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_prison_populati...
- NationalPark 5y ago
  Those were dismantled for themselves being full of human rights violations though.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Yea - but dismantling them was the wrong answer. It was the easy guiltless answer where everyone could pat themselves on the back, but mental health treatment is a service that society needs and trying to solve it with prisons is just a terrible idea. The right answer was admitting and addressing those terrible abuses and fixing the system.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  >Lots of people who would better be served in psychiatric units are housed in regular prisons. You know, people always say this, but they never think of things from the point of view of all the people in mental wards who are not criminals and are defenseless. Also, modern mental wards do not house anyone for very long. So they just aren't applicable for long term housing. People who are arrested do sometimes end up in psychiatric units temporarily, and once they are "stabilized" then they get back into the legal system.
eloff 5y ago
You need to drop North Korea from that to make any sense at all. Not only do they incarcerate far more people per capita than the US, but the conditions make US prison seem like paradise. No exaggeration. Prison in North Korea is much closer in spirit and implementation to Nazi concentration camps during the second World War, or the Soviet gulags. Many people die within months of being sent there.
- minikites 5y ago
  >Many people die within months of being sent there. I take your overall point, but here in the US police just execute people on the streets and then face no consequences for doing so. I continue to think the comparison fits.
  - eloff 5y ago
    No. Trying to say they're somehow equivalent is whataboutism, it's insulting to the US and demeaning to survivors of North Korea. I know the US is not perfect, but you can't just go saying it's like North Korea.
    - coldtea 5y ago
      >Trying to say they're somehow equivalent is whataboutism Which is another name for "putting things in perspective" and "addressing all bad actors, not singling out one for the benefit of the other".
      - eloff 5y ago
        No. It's another name for tu quoque, a logical fallacy by attempting to deflect criticism through pointing out hypocrisy. The Soviets used it as their go-to defense for their hideous system by pointing to racism, prisons, lynching, etc in the US. As if that made their shortcomings acceptable. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Whataboutism You can criticize some party or entity all you want, just make a logical argument free of fallacies. I don't abide using whataboutism to make false equivalencies. The US is nothing like North Korea. To compare the two, unless done extremely carefully, is insulting to people in the US, and demeaning the experience of people in North Korea. To think of it another way, if you compare working in McDonald's to slavery, you're insulting the people that work for McDonald's and demeaning the experience of survivors of actual slavery.

mc32 5y ago

We do incarcerate a lot, however, keep in mind some of it has to do with the dismantling of the equally problematic mental health institutions beginning in the late sixties. Lots of people who would better be served in psychiatric units are housed in regular prisons.

throwaway4good 5y ago
You also over-incarcerate black men by a factor of XXX - hardly you can use the excuse of lack of psychiatric units there.
- mc32 5y ago
  How do you explain Cuba, Grenada, or Maldives? There are historical factors which contribute to higher incarceration rates (poor, lack of opportunity, unemployment benefits structures (unreported income does not affect eligibility), etc which contribute to higher probability of running afoul of criminal law. Moreover, you can see a marked increase from the '80s on. That strongly implies economic factors (in conjunction with Clinton's tough on crime agenda). What precipitates this is the hollowing out of American jobs overseas. No longer could a high school graduate live on the income afforded by a HS graduate. As people's in the lower socio-economic rungs saw decreasing purchasing power, few alternatives were available to them. Steel Mills closed down, Shoe factories, Clothing, the FT cleaning crew was replaced by low wage imported labor, etc. Some of the same reasons are seen in countries with populations of poor people. Belarus, Thailand, Bahamas, etc.
- pkaye 5y ago
  Do they keep similar incareration statistics for UK, France, Germany, etc? I'd like to see if there is works there.
- pkaye 5y ago
  Looks like UK has a similar over-incarceration disparity though. > People from BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) backgrounds constitute only 14% of the general population in England and Wales, but make up 25% of its prison population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_prison_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_prison_populati...
NationalPark 5y ago
Those were dismantled for themselves being full of human rights violations though.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Yea - but dismantling them was the wrong answer. It was the easy guiltless answer where everyone could pat themselves on the back, but mental health treatment is a service that society needs and trying to solve it with prisons is just a terrible idea. The right answer was admitting and addressing those terrible abuses and fixing the system.
perl4ever 5y ago
>Lots of people who would better be served in psychiatric units are housed in regular prisons. You know, people always say this, but they never think of things from the point of view of all the people in mental wards who are not criminals and are defenseless. Also, modern mental wards do not house anyone for very long. So they just aren't applicable for long term housing. People who are arrested do sometimes end up in psychiatric units temporarily, and once they are "stabilized" then they get back into the legal system.

eloff 5y ago

You need to drop North Korea from that to make any sense at all. Not only do they incarcerate far more people per capita than the US, but the conditions make US prison seem like paradise. No exaggeration. Prison in North Korea is much closer in spirit and implementation to Nazi concentration camps during the second World War, or the Soviet gulags. Many people die within months of being sent there.

minikites 5y ago
>Many people die within months of being sent there. I take your overall point, but here in the US police just execute people on the streets and then face no consequences for doing so. I continue to think the comparison fits.
- eloff 5y ago
  No. Trying to say they're somehow equivalent is whataboutism, it's insulting to the US and demeaning to survivors of North Korea. I know the US is not perfect, but you can't just go saying it's like North Korea.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    >Trying to say they're somehow equivalent is whataboutism Which is another name for "putting things in perspective" and "addressing all bad actors, not singling out one for the benefit of the other".
    - eloff 5y ago
      No. It's another name for tu quoque, a logical fallacy by attempting to deflect criticism through pointing out hypocrisy. The Soviets used it as their go-to defense for their hideous system by pointing to racism, prisons, lynching, etc in the US. As if that made their shortcomings acceptable. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Whataboutism You can criticize some party or entity all you want, just make a logical argument free of fallacies. I don't abide using whataboutism to make false equivalencies. The US is nothing like North Korea. To compare the two, unless done extremely carefully, is insulting to people in the US, and demeaning the experience of people in North Korea. To think of it another way, if you compare working in McDonald's to slavery, you're insulting the people that work for McDonald's and demeaning the experience of survivors of actual slavery.