There Are Now More Americans In Jail Than There Were In Stalin's Gulag Archipelago -

There Are Now More Americans In Jail Than There Were In Stalin's Gulag Archipelago - 
 



There are now more Americans in jail -- 6 million -- than there were in Stalin's Gulag, reports Fareed Zakaria, in a column called "Incarceration Nation."
And it's not just a relative population thing.
The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens.
How does that compare to other countries?
It's 7X-10X as high:
Japan has 63 per 100,000,
Germany has 90 per 100,000
France has 96 per 100,000
South Korea has 97 per 100,000
­Britain has 153 per 100,000
And it's also a relatively new phenomenon: In 1980, the U.S. only had 150 prisoners per 100,000 citizens.
What's to blame?
The "War on Drugs."
More than half of America's 6 million prisoners are in jail for drug convictions, with 80% of those in jail for "possession."




Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-americans-in-jail-2012-3