The three most powerful nations all operate prison systems that are places of sadism, sickness, and madness unfit for human habitation, much less human reformation.
They also lead the world with astonishing rates of imprisonment far higher than in other industrialized nations. "The U.S. incarceration rate of 737 per 100,000 people is the (world's) highest, followed by 611 in Russia," Reuters reports. Compare the above rates with the following nations: Spain, 149; Canada, 114; Australia, 103; The Netherlands, 82; Germany, 80; Norway, 71; Denmark, 68; Sweden, 67; Finland, 60; and Japan, 54.
America has 2.3 million souls behind bars; China ranks second with 1.5 million, and Russia places third with 870,000---a figure Deputy Justice Minister Yury Kalinin says actually is closer to 2 million. Whatever, all three inflict gruesome tortures on their prisoners.
To begin with, one permanent misery that equals torture is overcrowding. California is fighting a U.S. Supreme Court order to slash a prison population 46% over capacity: 119,000 human beings stuffed into 33 prisons. It's a story repeated over and again nationally---in Alabama, Illinois, ad nauseum.
Comment: The nationwide civilian death toll rose Thursday to 578, 318 of them in Cairo and 260 in other parts of Egypt. 42 members of the security forces also were killed in the clashes.The bloodshed is likely to continue with additional reports that the Egypt's military-backed government authorized security forces to fire live ammunition against opponents.