[_-david-_]

It doesn't matter why. Unless you can show that the US has the same or less criminals you can't show that high incarceration does not lower crime.

[micromacrofoot]

but "criminal" depends almost entirely on how a country defines and polices crime, does it not? so all you can do is look at numbers like incarceration rate, no?

[_-david-_]

I don't believe it is possible to actually accurately determine this. Even if you could define crimes the same across countries, many crimes go unsolved so you wouldn't know if it is one criminal or multiple criminals committing crimes. That was my point. The claim was that incarnation of criminals does not lower crime. I am saying we don't know if that is the case.