Criminal system

Bill Stuntz at Less than the Least looks at the dramatic rise in the American prison population:-

Adjusted for population, imprisonment has quintupled in the last thirty-five years. As of 2001 (America’s prison population has grown since then), the average incarceration rate in EU countries was 87 per 100,000 population. In the U.S., the comparable figure was nearly 700. The black incarceration rate is several times higher than that.

[Via Instapundit]