US, England imprison more per capita than China

[mojo]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/prisons/story/0,7369,649355,00.html

England worse than China in prison population rate

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Wednesday February 13, 2002
The Guardian

England has proportionately more people in prison than China, Saudi Arabia or Turkey, according to world prison population statistics released by the Home Office yesterday.

The figures, compiled by Roy Walmsley, the research director of World Prison Brief Online, confirm that England and Wales's rate of 125 inmates per 100,000 population is the second highest in the EU, behind only Portugal. Scotland jails 120 per 100,000, and Northern Ireland 50 per 100,000. The official figure for England and Wales hit a record 68,615 inmates last Friday.

The world prison population list, which gives details of prisoners held in 200 countries, shows that there are more than 8.75m people in prison around the world. About half are in the US (1.93m), China (1.43m) and Russia (0.96m).

The US and Russia lock up more of their citizens than anywhere else, with the US incarcerating 700 inmates for every 100,000 of its population and Russia 665.

But while the English rate of 125 per 100,000 places it about halfway down the league table it is still on a par with countries such as Burma (120) and Libya (125) which are not known for their human rights record.

The English rate is higher than China (110); Saudi Arabia (45) and Turkey (110).

Richard Garside, of the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, said the home secretary, David Blunkett, could take the credit for encouraging debate on Britain's overuse of prison.

"We would like him to set a target to bring down prison numbers in England and Wales to the European Union average of 97 per 100,000 as a first step towards a more ra tional prisons policy," he said. Hitting the EU average would mean bringing the prison population down from 74,500 to 58,200, he added.

Mr Blunkett last week announced plans to introduce weekend prisons and a network of secure hostels for minor offenders as ways of curbing the growth in the inmate population.

How we compare with Europe

(Prison population per 100,000)

Portugal 130

England & Wales 125

Spain 115

Germany 95

Italy 95

Belgium 85

France 85

Netherlands 85

Ireland 80

Sweden 65

[Leon]

Not surprising considering China executes most of their criminals.


Executions in 2000

China: 1,000
Saudi Arabia: 123
United States: 85
Iran: 75

Source: Amnesty International

[jase71]

Originally posted by Leon
Not surprising considering China executes most of their criminals.


Not that I'm any fan of China or their policies, but executing 1000 prisoners out of 1.43 million is a little bit short of "most of their criminals".

[mojo]

i would need more information to form and real opinion on this. i don't know enough about chinese law, how many "deserve" to be imprisoned, etc. i actually thought the given numbers were interesting, tho.

[Leon]

Considering China's population, they don't have all that many people in jail compared to the US and GB.

[jase71]

I think a breakdown of why the people are in prison would be interesting. Why they are in prison is equally as revealing as the numbers in prison.

I would suspect that if you looked at China, you'd find a much higher percentage of "political" prisoners than you would in the US or GB.
Russia probably is closer to China than the US in this regard.

The US and GB probably have a much higher percentage of people imprisoned for drug crimes, and non-violent crime. I would guess these types of crimes are more often ignored in China, or at least not investigated as thoroughly, since they're not political, and aren't a threat to the government.

[Leon]

You're probably right, but they did execute 62 people on some national drug awareness day for drug related crimes. My guess is that they executed the bigger smugglers.

[jase71]

Originally posted by Leon
You're probably right, but they did execute 62 people on some national drug awareness day for drug related crimes. My guess is that they executed the bigger smugglers.

Or they just selected 62 random political prisoners, accused them of drug crimes, and killed two birds with one stone, so to speak.
Make an anti-drug statement, AND eliminate some of your worst enemies, but with support of the people because they were killed for drug crimes.

Who knows? Tough to get an accurate assessment of what's really going on in China. They don't exactly publish a lot of their policies and procedures.

I'm actually surprised anyone was able to come up with a number of prisoners in China... that had to be quite a task.

[Leon]

I wouldn't be surprised if they did just that. :hmm:

Actually, I just read an article that China keeps their executions secret, but Amnesty International estimates about 5,000 a year.

[jase71]

Originally posted by Leon

Actually, I just read an article that China keeps their executions secret, but Amnesty International estimates about 5,000 a year.

That wouldn't surprise me at all. I thought the 1000 number sounded low based on China's reputation, but with no contrary info, I took it at face value.

Probably depends on how you define "execution" too. Setting someone up as "escaping" or "resisting arrest" and killing them in response is just as much an execution as a public one, although it probably doesn't show up in the stats as an execution.

[mojo]

we seem higher than other non-china places too...or is that a farce as well?

[jase71]

Originally posted by mojo
we seem higher than other non-china places too...or is that a farce as well?

Our number imprisoned? Or our number executed?

I think our numbers sound accurate... after all, we've been "getting tough on crime" for a while now... and you've got to put all those people somewhere. Add to that the "truth in sentencing" laws so people don't get out early on parole, and you'll ramp up the number of inmates pretty quickly...

[mojo]

Originally posted by jase71


Our number imprisoned? Or our number executed?

I think our numbers sound accurate... after all, we've been "getting tough on crime" for a while now... and you've got to put all those people somewhere. Add to that the "truth in sentencing" laws so people don't get out early on parole, and you'll ramp up the number of inmates pretty quickly... well, i don't want to assume there is the same amount of crime. that kind of information isn't available. it might be interesting to think that they may be doing something right...something that we could be doing as well. if we don't entertain such ideas, then we close out all kinds of possibilities for ourselves...things that may help us improve.

[jase71]

Originally posted by mojo
well, i don't want to assume there is the same amount of crime. that kind of information isn't available. it might be interesting to think that they may be doing something right...something that we could be doing as well. if we don't entertain such ideas, then we close out all kinds of possibilities for ourselves...things that may help us improve.

Ah... I see what you're getting at.

True, it would be interesting to know the reasons for the differences.
Cultural? Enforcement? Reporting?

You can pose all kinds of interesting reasons for the difference... and if you could view it without the automatic "China=Bad" filter, we could learn something.

But to know whether it's worth pondering, we'd have to know what you've already pointed out, the true amount of crime, rather than just the number of prisoners... after all, the two don't necessarily correlate. Have you seen any crime statistics on China, rather than prisoner numbers, and how they relate to American crime statistics? That could make for quite a discussion...

[mojo]

i havent really seen any hard numbers that mean much. i mean, statistics are usually used to fool people, and sometimes it's hard to tell those that aren't. i'd be interested in seeing any numbers that are presented tho.

the hardest thing would be to get the actual numbers from a non-governmental source. of course each government wants to look good to the world, so there is an automatic slant. then of course whoever compiles the data might have loyalties to a country or other biases. all the same, i guess it has to start somewhere. once we stop viewing the world from a "friend or enemy" standpoint we could start to get somewhere. maybe even...*gasp*...help each other out.

[Grimm]

Hmmmm.... Well, first I am going to point out that we do not work our prisoners to death in the US. To show a valid comparison we would have to show death rates too. They don't have to count the dead ones.

I believe that we should count drug offenders in the US as political prisoners. They are, after all, imprissoned because of a political stance that the US took. Many countries allow drug use (notably those with lower prison populations). The only way to effectively fight drugs is through education and treatment. We just lock them up and tax people more to pay for it. It's sickening!