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> I don’t believe USA has so many people in prison because its population _is_ more criminal than that of other countries. I do. I’ve lived in some foreign cou
by bart_spoon 5y ago
> I don’t believe USA has so many people in prison because its population _is_ more criminal than that of other countries.
I do. I’ve lived in some foreign countries and have come to realize that culture plays just as much if not more of a role in crime as material conditions. America has some toxic aspects to our culture that contribute to our population being more likely to commit crimes. We are hyper individualist, and more violent across all socioeconomic levels.
- Someone 5y agoI think we agree. I wasn’t clear enough, but I wrote the underscores in “its population _is_ more criminal” to implicitly contrast it with “its population _behaves_ more criminal”. It certainly does the latter, but that doesn’t imply the former. Simplifying things, the USA tends to think that all people who _do_ crimes _are_ criminals and, hence, should be locked up in order to decrease the amount of crime, while other countries think circumstances may have made them perform crimes, and changing circumstances may be the best way to decrease crime because it’s cheaper and/or leads to a happier population. (In general, I think (again simplifying things), the USA prefers sending in the cavalry to save the day over doing things to prevent the need for a cavalry. You see that in infrastructure maintenance, reactions to natural disasters, and in the way it does diplomacy in the middle east, too. California is somewhat of an exception there. It invests heavily preparing for the big one)