>> The US has a lot of people in prison because the US has a lot of
>> criminals, end of story.
>
> I'm not sure of that. I thought that U.S. crime rates, aside from gun-
> induced murders, are comparable to Western Europe's.
You just said that the US has a rate of incarceration that's 8x France, and that 1/3 of it is violent crime?!
> We only stand out on murder. Or so I remember.
C'mon, don't you read your own posts? Murder in the US is like 1.2% of "violent crime" (murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault: all things I'm sure you'll agree ought to get you locked up!). If 1/3 of US prison population is "violent crime" and 1.2% of "violent crime" is murder, then I don't have to tell you that that no more than .4% of the prison population is in there for murder!
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/offenses/violent_crime/index.html
Also: gun-murder is ~70% of murder.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_06.html
If we "stand out only on gun-induced murders" then we don't stand out very much at all.
/jordan