[WS:] That seems quite obvious, almost tautological, no? What the alternative reasons would be, Rotary Club members volunteering their time?
US seems like a pretty violent place to me vis a vis other developed democracies. Perhaps it is not as violent as, say, Eastern Europe or Africa, but it has a greater capacity to apprehend and imprison those who do break the law. So the high numbers of inmates are not at all surprising, even if recidivism rates go down.
I also do not think that locking these guys up is necessarily a bad thing. Back in the old country, police would not generally "interfere in domestic affairs" - which they interpreted quite liberally, basically anything that did not involve crimes against institutions. This might have kept arrest and imprisonment rates down, all right, but left a lost of folk, especially women, the elderly and youngsters quite vulnerable to domestic violence, extortion, blackmail, and bullying. My understanding is that domestic violence and hooliganism are still menacing the countries of the x-Soviet block. I can tell a story of two, if anyone is interested.
Here is one, anyway, that of my landlord from my college years back in Poland, who would get drunk quite often and then beat up his wife. Nobody, including his tenants and the local rent-a-cop, wanted to "interfere in domestic affairs" so this was going on for a while, until his 16 year old kid finally stood up to his daddy. A fight ensued and someone called the cops, who came up, took the daddy to the paddy wagon and roughed him up a bit (albeit they did not file any charges.) The next thing I knew was that each time the landlord wanted to have a few drinks he would come to my room with a bottle and then cry on my shoulder how unfairly he was treated (I believe they broke a few of his ribs or something). But he did not dare to touch his wife anymore.
Wojtek