Us has the highest verified incarceration per capita in the world and the largest number of total prisoners. So at least by verified numbers it's not really even close, the US is by far the worst. Are the numbers accurate for China or other oppressive regimes? Who knows and North Korea doesn't release numbers but they're thought to be close to or slightly higher than the US' per capita numbers.

https://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison-popul...

So probably the only country that has very slight worse numbers in the entire world is North Korea, including all the other dictatorships and otherwise failed states. That's crazy.

Looking at US incarceration data over time, the causes are plainly obvious. Mass incarceration began shortly after the civil rights movement was ended, when Nixon launched the War on Drugs in 1971, and then skyrocketed in the 80s as even harsher bipartisan anti drug laws were passed while at the same time the CIA was found to be facilitating the importation of billions of dollars of cocaine into inner cities at the inception point of the crack epidemic.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_...

Well, you could argue that all of North Korea is functionally an open air prison.

If you don’t get to live in a city because you lack the permit, is a rural Chinese citizen jailed in their home town?

If you don’t get to do stuff like drive without your male guardian present, is that Saudi woman watched over by a prison guard?

If you’re a German kid and you’re just tracked into trade school, did society put you to work for it below what you’re worth? Like prisoners being paid below minimum wage to make Victoria’s Secret underwear?

I’m not a hack, I know these things are different than jail. Coercion and incarceration takes many forms around the world though. Expand your mind beyond the formalism of the jail cell and you start to see it everywhere. That’s not necessarily a bad thing - that’s the self awareness this writer is asking for.

Besides, there’s also Belarus.

No. You're trying to use whataboutism to make the crazy incarceration rates in the US seem less bad. Don't do that.

The moment anyone is comparing the US to a dictatorship to make the US look good, it's not making the US look good.

Land of the Free indeed.

Yeah, so's the murder rate.

https://www.statista.com/chart/3848/the-us-murder-rate-compa...

And then you have countries that execute much higher amount of people, cut their hands or whip them. Incarceration rates are not the only thing in play.

True but we also execute people in the US, our prisons have despicable living conditions and we routinely use solitary confinement which could be considered a form of torture by some.