The USA has a higher incarceration rate than China because... China lies?

The USA's high incarceration rate is down to a number of things:

1) Mexican border + war on drugs. Around half of the prisoners are through drug-related crimes.

2) High rate of urbanization, the USA is the most urbanized country in the world, urbanized areas tend to have higher crime rates (and higher incarceration rates, as a greater percentage of criminals get caught)

3) Effective and relatively uncorrupted police force. I'm willing to bet that few other countries are as good as catching criminals as the USA.

4) More truth behind the data. I don't believe a word of what the Chinese Government has to say about China, particularly in cases such as crime rates, incarceration... these are exactly the kind of areas where their oppressive (and information controlling) government will benefit most from it. Lots of other countries will also fudge the data (I'm sure there is some level of this in the US, too). Japan, for example, the Japanese police force tend not to investigate crimes that they don't have a very high chance of success (as to keep their success rates up), as such most data in this area from Japan is fudged.

yeah

cultural clashes and cultrue disparities make it difficult

also the capitalistic way of soceity

i'll second that.

no clue why you have so many criminals in the usa but sometimes they sho american jails in german tv and i have to say the smallest jail in the usa has more hardcore criminals in it than all german jails together^^

i play a lot of poker online and i always have to get a "nazi" to read because of our history (and if i win a hand) and then i always have to think about the aryan brotherhood and other groups like that and i just have to laugh because nowadays in germany we don't have such bastards. sure we still have some nazis like every country has but not guys who kill everyone who just looks at them...

same with other groups we have a lot of crime here because of some groups stealing some money from people at a party or soemthing like that but we haven't these fucked up criminals going in jail 5 days after the came out of the jail

Maybe that's because crime rate is very high between those minority groups?

Simple answer is stupid drug laws.  Probably 80-90% of those in jail from drug or drug related crimes.  Legalize drugs, crime problem goes away.  Quite simple really.  Unfortunately, politicians are asshats with agendas and not rationale beings.

no dud thats a percentage of minorities as a whole. you knwo everything left if you don't include the majority.

meaning people with the lowest population in the counrty. i could brake it down but the sad truth is that in atlease 47 u.s states most of those minorities are black even with there population droping in most states meaning low birth rate.

maybe i shouldn't be in this thread.

see i'm blinded by an everything is equal mind set, but reality hits me far to often.

Reality is evil?

http://www.begintoread.com/research/literacystatistics.html

Literacy statistics and juvenile court

• 85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate.

• More than 60 percent of all prison inmates are functionally illiterate.

• Penal institution records show that inmates have a 16% chance of returning to prison if they receive literacy help, as opposed to 70% who receive no help. This equates to taxpayer costs of $25,000 per year per inmate and nearly double that amount for juvenile offenders.

• Illiteracy and crime are closely related. The Department of Justice states, "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure." Over 70% of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level.

... and if you think this is simply an 'American' problem, a similar correlation can be found between literacy rates and criminal activity in most western countries.

I don't disagree ...

All I'm saying is that the education system as it is set up today is failing to meet the needs of a large portion of the population. When you start digging into the statistics and seeing how many adults don't have reading or math skills at a level we associate with students in grade 6 it demonstrates how broken the system is.

You're both very wrong and veeeerrrry wrong.  Around 12% of arrests are for drug abuse in the US.  However, around 50% of all people arrested (for any crime mind you) test positive for drugs.  So while yes drug related crime does make for a notable percentage of inmates, there is overwhelming evidence to the fact that drugs contribute to more crimes.  So what is your real agenda for wanting drugs legalized?

Check it.

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_31.html

Word to ya mutha.