If Every American State Was a Country, Which Would Have the World’s Highest Incarceration Rate?

If you’re a regular Reason reader, you probably know
that the U.S. has the world’s highest incarceration rate. Cuba
comes second, then Rwanda, Russia, and the rest. But what if we
treated each individual state as an independent nation and stacked
them all up against the rest of the world? Which place would prove
most prone to locking people up?

The Prison Policy Initiative has put together a pretty amazing
chart answering
just that question. First place turns out to go to Louisiana, which
locks up 1,341 people for every 100,000 residents. Thirty-five
other states have incarceration rates that beat the Cubans’, as
does the District of Columbia.

The least prison-happy state? Vermont. You can head down to the

comments to debate whether that’s because it’s full of
soft-hearted hippies or if it’s just that
those old people there don’t commit as many crimes.

Bonus link: Our special issue on mass
incarceration.