Why does the U.S. raise more criminals than any other nation?

Question

See the stats at
http://www.nccd-crc.org/nccd/pubs/2006nov_factsheet_incarceration.pdf

Incarceration rates per 100,000 people:
U.S. 738
Cuba 487
Iran 208
U.K. 145
China 118
Germany 95
France 88
Sweden 78
Venezuela 74
Japan 62

Why is the U.S. more similar to Cuba and Iran in this case than France and Sweden? What are the similarities in the socities that result in higher percentage of people in prison?

Answer 1

There are a number of factors. The 'War on Drugs' is a big one - we criminalize a lot of things that other nations don't. And we have a lot of manditory sentencing, things like 3-strikes laws that put criminals in jail for life - handing out a lot of life sentences is going to swell your convict population. It may also be that America is more efficient when it comes to rounding up criminals and getting them convicted. There's also the transparency of the system: you /can/ get an accurate count of convicts to the public in the US, in a nation like Cuba or China, you probably can't. Also, in totalitarian nations, many people might be 'disapeared' - not just secretly imprisoned, but simply killed, without ever being counted as incarcerated or executed. Then there's the troubles caused by a mutli-ethnic society - Japan, for instance, is a monoculture, so there are relatively few people struggling with the frustrations of past discrimination, and no sub-cultures of poverty that glorify crime. There are economic issues: America is often called a 'rich' country, but, it's also a very expensive country to live in - unskilled jobs that would see you through life modestly in other countries don't pay enough to rise above the poverty line in the US - frustration with that can cause people to turn to more lucrative criminal enterprises.

Answer 2

Because we don't enforce the laws that we have. If we did there would not be so much crime. They use terrible tragedies and crimes to pass new laws to take, little by little, the freedoms of their law abiding citizens. While all the while the media is pumping the same propaganda. We really are in a downward spiral. Just look at any program the US government touches from the education system to social security. Modern day Titanic.

Answer 3

Under Carter, Castro emptied his jails and sent them to the US.
Mexico is doing the same thing now. Iran and China will kill or dismember people that step out of line.
I would question the France rate. That would go up if they had the guts to control the Muslim population.
Sweden, with all the beautiful women why would someone be a crook.
Venezuela is a surprise, maybe we can learn something from them.

Answer 4

The U.S. doesn't have the most criminals, it has the most convicted criminals. There is a difference. In many countries crimes go unpunished or unprosecuted. That doesn't mean there are any less criminals.

Answer 5

If you expect to raise law-abiding citizens, then you must enforce the laws uniformly and without regard to race, status, creed, etc. When you have 12-20 million lawbreakers residing, working, and marching in our streets and around the country, their children are not learning to obey laws, they are learning how to circumvent them. Equal enforcement is what will make the change and only enforcement will work at this point. If people have a reasonable expectation that the laws will not be enforced, they have no reason to obey them.

Answer 6

Incarceration rates is not causative with criminals by the way. – but the US is no where near the top in crime rates.

Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. - John Quincy Adams

Answer 7

Well China doesn't send most of it's alleged criminals to jail, it just drives tanks over them. Cuba puts all it's criminals on boats and pushes them out to sea. Iran cuts their heads off. Venezuela marches them into the jungle, and well you can guess the rest.

Answer 8

Ah-ha ha ha ha ha you guys are fricken worse than IRAN!

Rising crime rates are due to slumps in moral society. The consumer society is totally taking over; soon, America will be entirely comprised of selfish, foolish, ignorant lawbreakers.

With the ultimate decay of all things decent in society, you can easily look at religion; with the decline of strong religious overtones, there is a rise in the crime rate. Of course, there are people who will claim to DO things in the name of "religion" and "morals", but they are hypocritical. Only true religion could bring up ethics in society.

Yet, as science advances and life becomes easier and easier, people start to deviate from moral codes laid down in nations centuries ago. This "Its my right, I can be a yob if I want" attitude is getting out of hand.

Answer 9

Because the USA offers the most personal freedom availiable in the world. One of the costs to society is that more people will abuse this freedom.

Answer 10

Because we have more to steal and smarter criminals. Pl-use thanks to the bleeding heart left wing the cop stand a better chance of going to jail the the criminal.