"I mean, simply put, what are the things that in the US would get you in jail and they wouldn't in, let's say, the UK?" There is no way in the UK to get a life

"I mean, simply put, what are the things that in the US would get you in jail and they wouldn't in, let's say, the UK?" There is no way in the UK to get a life sentence from a small crime in the way that the three strikes laws do in the US. In general our jail sentences are much shorter for equivalent crimes in the US and we have nowhere near the rate of incarcerating children either and are much less likely to get the police involved for misbehaving in school. We are also much less likely to incarcerate for drug possession over here. There are also crimes that simply do not exist in the UK, such as jaywalking, which got the Oxford historian, Professor Felipe Fernández-Armesto, locked up for the evening when he visited Atlanta for a conference. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/jan/11/highereducation.education http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/jan/11/highereducation.ed... The US also has a habit of handing out sentences far longer than the possible lifespan of the accused even for non-violent offences, such as the 124 years that Hector Monsegur is being threatened with for his role in lulzsec, or the 150 years handed out to Bernie Madoff, which the Judge stated was "to send a symbolic message". Overall, for the same acts, in the US you are much more likely to be jailed than in the UK and also, even if you would have been jailed in the UK, the length of sentence is far far higher in the US.