[hyper_reality]

This is an interesting exploration of the incarceration statistics, but it doesn't go one step further and explain why American prison sentences are so long.

I've seen numerous explanations for this, one being that there is a strong incentive for US politicians to look "tough on crime", a greater emphasis on retribution than rehabilitation, historic racial injustice, and a sizeable for-profit private prison industry. But other developed countries also have these factors to some extent, for example the UK's private prisons house 18% of prisoners compared to the USA's housing 8%.

In my view, understanding the cause of why these long sentences are considered normal is essential to preventing a lot of pain and suffering. There are several examples of harmless people given life sentences for marijuana possession under three strikes laws, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. A society that is obsessed with freedom yet incarcerates more of its citizens than Cuba or Russia, and hands down disproportionately severe sentences for transgressions that would be viewed much less seriously in other countries, is a bizarre phenomenon with a huge human cost.