America isn't exceptional – it's the exception

https://www.not-ship.com/america-isnt-exceptional-its-the-exception/

12•hedayet•2h ago

Comments

chadcmulligan•1h ago

If you look at military spending US is exceptional

chasil•1h ago

We are accomplished in the infliction of suffering and death.

Such a noble goal.

metalcrow•1h ago

To pick one point out of the article for discussion, does anyone have any idea why the US is the leader in per-capita prison rates? The laws aren't all that different from other first world nations, and i doubt all the other nations have magically solved crime. What is going on? Is crime just lower in other nations? Do they not punish as many crimes with jail time?

acuozzo•1h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs

metalcrow•1h ago

That's can't be entirely it. Other nations have similar laws against drug use, and from what i remember reading only 5% of the prison population is in jail for non-violent drug related crimes.

evmaki•1h ago

US incarceration rates increased 500% in the decades following the enactment of war on drugs legislation, starting with the Controlled Substances Act in 1970.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...

More speculatively, I think the prison system has also taken over the role of the mental health institutions that were wound down under Reagan. Over half of the incarcerated population has a mental health condition, and likely are not receiving adequate mental health care while incarcerated.

metalcrow•1h ago

You actually seem to have a compelling case here. I am seeing something like 20% of the combined state and federal prison population is in for drug offenses, but that raises some more questions. I could certainly believe that a lot of that is simple possession and the US is uniquely terrible in that regard, but certainly other countries must handle drug dealers as well. And it's hard to break out drug offenses into more detail. Are we talking kilograms of possession? Distributing drugs? (of course, some laws claim that possession, say, 10 grams implies intent to distribute which complicates things).

And even outside of drugs, while 20% of our prison population does account for a large chunk of the us's exceptional nature, it would still leave us #1 by a large margin if it didn't exist. Although Wikipedia does talk about another part of this is due to the _length_ of the US sentences, and how they are much longer on average then other countries, so that also contributes significantly.

acuozzo•1h ago

Entirely? No, but check this out: https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civ...

Also, remember that the 13th amendment to the US constitution retained the right for the state to use imprisoned persons for slave labor.

Here's a question: The other countries you mention... do they have mandatory 5-year minimum sentences for possessing as little as 5g of Crack Cocaine?

9x39•1h ago

Demographics and a punitive culture that leans towards violence.

metalcrow•1h ago

That's a convenient explanation, but it's almost too convenient. We just got unlucky and there's not much we can do? We just got bad people and bad culture and that's that? It's also pretty difficult to prove! Not to say it's wrong, just that it makes thing too easy.

roxolotl•1h ago

To give you an example in disparity of culture a relative of mine visited me a few years back from Austria. We took a train into NYC and the notices the sign that said “Assaulting transportation personnel is punishable by up to 7 years in prison” and couldn’t stop laughing all day. They are a lawyer and had never encountered a non murder case with a sentence that harsh.

chadcmulligan•1h ago

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction".

This probably has something to do with it.

Zetaphor•1h ago

Many of the prison systems in the US are privatized

metalcrow•1h ago

The United Kingdom also extensively uses private prisons, along with Japan and Australia, among others. If that is it then it would be a lobbying problem specific to the US, which seems like it could be pinpointed to more specific laws or sentencing guidelines.

acuozzo•1h ago

Only 8% of prisoners in the US are kept in private facilities.

arctic-true•1h ago

America uses prisons to warehouse the mentally ill. We also have the rare combination of extremely high rates of violence - our rate of violent gun deaths per 100,000 is in the top 5 globally, slotting in between Mexico and Venezuela - and fairly robust policing and judiciary functions.

metalcrow•1h ago

Those are very good points, but it does make me question how other countries handle the mentally ill so much better.

throwaway_5633•1h ago

Longer incarceration times in the US, fewer alternative punishments, lower rehabilitation and a higher inequality compared to similar countries. Recidivism in North-west Europe is around 25% compared to around 60% for the US, combined with longer and more prison sentences for comparable crimes quickly leads to much higher incarceration rates.

metalcrow•1h ago

Longer incarceration times and lower rehabilitation (and lack of interest in it) are definitely huge ones you're right.

chasil•1h ago

We invented so much technology, but drove it out of the country at the behest of labor cost reduction.

We have so many smart people, but they are irrelevant in the AI that we are giving away.

Is there any hope? I am not seeing it.

gadflyinyoureye•1h ago

I'm curious if things change when comparing the US to the EU. The US is too diverse to compare to one homogeneous country. The EU might be better in this regard.

mkw5053•1h ago

While I agree that believing the US is "uniquely great, superior to other nations, destined for a special role in the world" is silly, this article feels just as cherry-picked, on the other extreme. The US is an outlier in plenty of negative ways, yes. But it's also an outlier in GDP per capita, venture capital investment, Nobel Prizes, university quality, immigrant demand, medical innovation, and cultural export. Any honest look at the data shows a country that is simultaneously world-leading and world-lagging depending on which metrics you choose. Picking only one side of that ledger isn't analysis.

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