[ncmncm]

During WWII, German prisoners, and anybody else drafted into service for Germany and captured, were killed or sent to the Gulags. During and after the war, anyone who had been taken prisoner and returned to Soviet custody were considered deserters, and shot or sent to the Gulags. Civilians in places first overrun by German and then Soviet forces were considered collaborators and commonly killed or sent to the Gulags. The choice which often depended on availability of transportation.

Gulag terms were often only a few years because the lifespan of prisoners at many sites was short, particularly gold mines.

So, not just prisons or labor camps. It is hard to imagine how 81% or 87% could be identified as ordinary criminals in the absence of any semblance of due process. A tortured confession is not a verdict.

All that said, I welcome injections of nuance.

[poweronselftest]

> particularly gold mines.

The commenters who compared prisons in the United States with Gulags, where you were sent to dig for gold basically by hand, poorly dressed at -30C for 12 hours.

> So, not just prisons or labor camps. It is hard to imagine how 81% or 87% could be identified as ordinary criminals in the absence of any semblance of due process. A tortured confession is not a verdict.

It takes a special kind of ignorance to believe statistics like this, and then to believe that being a "thief" makes being sent to prison okay, while complaining about incarceration in the United States, where people are incarcerated for petty crimes. It is mind bending.

[mushbino]

I'm open to being wrong if you have evidence to the contrary, but you've only been offering anecdotes and ad-hominems.