Private Prison Complex receives terrible news.

[Aractus]

Yes, I am informed on what you can go to prison for across the pond. America is vastly different compared to Europe, so what?

People often have a go at me for saying how primitive and backward-thinking the United States is. What I find interesting is that Americans are completely ignorant to the criticism that they receive on a daily basis. On statement that gets repeated by politicians here, especially during an election, is "we don't want to be like America". And that's across a range of political issues.

The USA is stuck in 18th and 19th century mentality, beliefs, and political wisdom. In 2014, the USA ranked 5th highest number of death penalties carried out, with 35 people executed (source- Amnesty International). Belarus is the only other Western country that practises the death penalty (Turkey has said that they might reinstate it, but as of now have not done so). The criminalisation and prosecution of prostitution is also unbelievably primitive.

Prison rates are here. From the link you will see that the USA has a prison rate of 693 per 100,000. European countries have a median prison rate of about 120-130 per 100,000.

There is a wonderful list here of petty crimes that have people in prison for life in the USA (with further info here). In fact if that's not bad enough, OJ Simpson was sentenced to die in prison in 2008 for a petty crime (essentially he and his friends armed themselves and stormed a hotel room to recover items that were stolen from his storage shed/s). It's a crime that would normally not receive anything greater than a slap on the wrist or a couple of months in gaol. It is likely that the judge's prejudice against OJ (she might believe he 'got away with murder') led to the extreme sentencing. I use the word prejudice because in the eyes of the law he was innocent of that crime, for all we know the real murder might be still out there living it large. It's not justice any way you look at it, and there are plenty of examples like that in the USA where people have clearly been over-sentenced all due to prejudice.