Yes, and one huge difference between China, Russia (and most other countries), and the US is that in the other countries when a person serves their sentence they are done. No label, no felony convictions following them for the rest of their lives.

You are totally correct. The system is fully in place and it and the government have become one and the same.

There is no escape from this. None – we lost.

I’m surprised that Floriduh is as far down the list as it is (#9). As long as the federal government subsidizes state law enforcement agencies, the high incarceration rates will continue. Maybe we should ask Prez to cut them off like he’s doing with health care and education.

Yeah, actually that era of Russia you are referencing had about the same incarceration rate as the US has today. We are only slightly behind at the moment. Think about that for a second….The US incarceration rate is roughly equivalent to that of Gulag-era Soviet Russia. Heck, some of our states have already left Solzhenitsyn’s Archipelago in the dust.

Here’s a quick and easy chart:

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2016.html

I notice China isn’t on that list (unless I missed it) but last estimate I read–some time ago– was around 218 per 100k.

Sometimes it hurts to look in the mirror. This is what we are.

Actually Capt. we have more (far more) incarcerated than either of those countries you named. We have for years.