it really is insane how little you hear about "america has the world's highest prison population by such a significant margin that it would be seen as excessively over-the-top if it was used in fiction"
before you say "4% isn't that big of a difference between the US and China"
for anyone bad at math 1.4 billion divided by 340 million is about 4. we have a fourth the population of china but a higher prison population and a higher incarceration rate by far. this is just widely publicly available information that you're supposed to just accept. it's not supposed to make you go insane.
The US has the largest prison population AND the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. The US is home to 4.2% of the world's population but 20% of its incarcerated population. More than 0.6% of the US population is incarcerated.
Men make up 93% of the US prison population, but despite this, the US accounts for 30% of the GLOBAL population of incarcerated women.
Housing insecurity is the most significant predictor of incarceration with 22% of state prisoners experiencing it shortly before incarceration.
12% of state prisoners in the US were unhoused before their 16th birthday.
68% of US state prisoners were first incarcerated before their 16th birthday.
More than half of people in prisons and jails in the US have a mental illness.
Cognitive learning disabilities occur in state prisons at nearly 500% the national rate.
[all data sourced or derived from the Prison Policy Initiative]
