Number One

International Herald Tribune: U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations

The United States has...2.3 million criminals behind bars...

The United States... has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population.

The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close is Russia, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people.

The median among all nations is about 125...

Criminologists and legal experts here and abroad point to a tangle of factors to explain America's extraordinary incarceration rate: higher levels of violent crime, harsher sentencing laws, a legacy of racial turmoil, a special fervor in combating illegal drugs...

As someone who was violently assaulted by 10 gang hoodlums, the trouble is that there are many more people out there who are extremely detrimental and violent.

The US may be number one, but there are many many thugs on the loose that should be removed from society. I hate to sound like a redneck but I know this firsthand.

There is a thriving thug culture in the USA. The people involved in it are proud of their violence. In fact they pass the definition of evil that I recently heard described by Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron - they commit violent acts and they find it funny. I know this firsthand.

So we have a culture of violent sociopaths running around with plenty of people quite willing to join in. All this article identifies is the depth of societal and cultural sickness that is pervasive in the USA.

Let me add to this that the movement from the teen years into adulthood are particularly tricky. In America there are no true cultural rituals that help people along in this progression. No rituals that are healthy and beneficial. Instead we now have the rituals of violence. People take pride in knowing they have caused violence.