US leads the world … in locking people up

A helpful reader has pointed me to posts at Opinio Juris and Andrew Sullivan’s blog noting a recent publication on global incarceration rates from the International Centre for Prison Studies at King’s College in London. The publication, which is the sixth edition of the World Prison Population List, can be accessed at this link.  Here are some key findings:

• The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world, some 714 per 100,000 of the national population, followed by Belarus, Bermuda and Russia (all 532), Palau (523), U.S. Virgin Islands (490), Turkmenistan (489), Cuba (487), Suriname (437), Cayman Islands (429), Belize (420), Ukraine (417), Maldive Islands (416), St Kitts and Nevis (415), South Africa (413) and Bahamas (410).

• However, almost three fifths of countries (58%) have rates below 150 per 100,000.

• Prison population rates vary considerably between different regions of the world, and between different parts of the same continent.

Andrew Sullivan comments that the report shows that “the land of the free is also the land of the unfree,” and Peggy McGuiness says it is “certainly clear that our culture tolerates having a much larger portion of our population imprisoned than any other democracy.”  In the same vein, I will add that these numbers inform my own work; I always find it difficult to reconcile our country’s supposed commitment to freedom and liberty with our extraordinary rates of incarceration and harsh sentencing policies.