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The "Gulag Archipelago" reference got me googling: http://seansrussiablog.org/2013/05/11/us-prison-industrial-c....

Apparently, if you compare apples to apples, in 1953 the USSR period had more like 7.4 million "adults on probation, in jail or prison, and on parole". 2.61% of total population vs 0.76% in present US.

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The survival rate in US prisons is higher though. You expect to come out alive from them.

If you count the people that died in gulags... it is lot worse there.

Of course - "US - we are not yet as bad as North Korea, Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany" is hardly a great optimistic slogan. The US prison system needs reform ASAP.

Where are you getting the 0.76% figure? The article mentions 6.7 million, which is about 2% of the US population. Still perhaps a lower percentage than during the height of the gulag days, but not that much lower.

0.76% is about the number that's currently incarcerated, with the rest on parole. It works out to be about 1 in 100 adults in the US that are currently incarcerated (even the US balks at the idea of locking up children)

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