I'm sorry but an upvote is an insufficient reaction to this comment.

In decades of considering State privacy abuses and their roots, I haven't come across an analysis that so succinctly encapsulates the whole of causes+outcomes as this one. It is one of the most Modern America things I have ever read.

> Because the US has an aversion to even think about the systematic reasons that cause crime, and prefers to pretend it's only about personal failings.

A lot of people think the other way around, where it's unfathomable that anyone would commit a crime of their own volition were it not for the weight of an unjust world upon them.

> Because the US has an aversion to even think about the systematic reasons that cause crime

I'd argue that some people have incentives to ignore the systematic reasons behind crime. Slave labor in the US is partly dependent on prisoners. Crime keeps people fearful and distrustful of each other. Crime is used to justify increased control and monitoring of the public and the abuse of prisoners. Crime enables a huge underclass of Americans who pay taxes but aren't allowed to vote. Sadistic cowards keep politicians elected who are "tough" on criminals and they vote against things we know would actually reduce crime whenever those solutions aren't also needlessly cruel.

That's called "rule of law" and a core foundation of any democracy.

The law equally applies to everyone, no matter the reason for it.

> those same agencies have very public crimes within their ranks

Do you think the problem is too much transparency? To use your example of the NYPD in the 90's (though I think you've probably got the wrong part of the decade if you're looking for the high water mark of crime), was it notably less corrupt than it is today, or was it just more opaque?

But how did the NYPD deal with crime in the 90's? Wasn't it by the kinds of privacy abuses called out in this report? By shaking down suspected criminals through stop and frisk?

> How did New York deal with crime in the late 90s? Not by ignoring it.

Actually, pretty much yes, or at least, that would have been a better strategy than some Giuliani BS.

Crime declined nation wide, and it had nothing to do with any local policies. My favorite theory is that leaded gasoline was causing crime spikes. But there are competing theories, and I think people have concluded that it isn't a single factor.

Everytime I went to NYC I was told to never approach NYPD if I was in trouble.

One coworker was mugged and beaten. Walked up to cops. They told him if he wasn’t gone in 30 seconds they’d take him in on a PI.

Crime doesn’t exist if it’s unreportable.

The US has the fifth highest per capita prison population in the world.

The four countries with a higher per capita population are: El Salvador, Rwanda, Turkmenistan, and Cuba. (Omitting American Samoa, because that's a US territory).

None of those are major countries, so the statement "The US is the most punitive major country in the world" absolutely holds water.

If you want an idea of how crazy high incarceration rates are in the states, just compare the prison population per 100,000 inhabitants with its neighbors:

    Canada - 85
    Mexico - 174
    USA    - 505

On a side note I wonder how many people would rather lose a limb than spend a decade in US prison.

That's because you are buying into western propaganda. These countries operate on some kind of "hype" of law. The odds that you'll go to jail in Singapore for committing a "punishable" offense is really low. I was surprised how lax Singapore is given its reputation. It seems that they are holding the status quo by that reputation rather than the enforcement of it.

This is the same for many other countries but not the case for the US. Also your first two examples applies to really small list of countries (Iran and S.A.) and their current governments are the disgrace of the world and are not really an example to take (like going too extreme and something the US shouldn't "I guess" be compared too).

Yes, but as you know, this discussion isn’t to prove that the US is the worst country in the world. We don’t even consider countries like those that you’re talking about in these conversations because they’re so behind and barbaric. What’s the point of even bringing this up except to distract from the discussion? What are you trying to show or prove with this? Remind everyone of things they already know? Your comment is an attempt to invalidate the legitimacy of the concerns posed above, and nothing more. Most of us though we’d move past the idea that murdering citizens is barbaric, and has no place in the world, yet people like you insist on telling us that we’re OK because we aren’t that, or that it’s not so bad here because it could be so much worse. That’s not useful in any sense.

I'm not sure that the quantity (per capita or whatever) of those things exceeds the quantity of incarceration and things like police violence in the US. But even being middle-of-the-road in terms of barbarism is nothing to write home about.

Few countries though since China does it, it affects a big population of the world.

Here is the list for 2021 from Wikipedia. There are only two "first-world" countries there.

At least 18 countries performed executions in 2021:[13][36][37]

    Americas (1 country): United States (11)
    Asia-Pacific (5 countries): Bangladesh (5), China (unknown), Japan (3), North Korea (unknown), Vietnam (unknown)
    Europe (1 country): Belarus (1+)
    Middle East and North Africa (8 countries): Egypt (83+), Iran (314+), Iraq (17+), Oman (unknown), Saudi Arabia (65), Syria (24+), UAE (1+), Yemen (14+)
    Sub-Saharan Africa (3 countries): Botswana (3), Somalia (21+), South Sudan (9+)

On the lower end, if you know doing common activity X (say possession) will get you a punishment as severe as more impactful crime Y (breaking and entering), what difference does it make?

On the upper end, if you have no priors and your career and family will be blown up because you want to do a political favor for someone that results in destroying the public trust, it probably does matter.