Why does the U.S. lock up more of its citizens than any other democracy in the western world?

1) When you have cultural diversity, you will tend to have more conflicts and violence. Nations that are racially and culturally homogeneous tend to have less problems in this regard.

2) More freedom means more people will abuse it.

3) Has one of the worst public education systems, even when compared to most second world nations. Ignorance naturally breeds criminal behavior.

4) ill-conceived and culturally biased drug laws treating non-violent users as criminals. People have been using drugs of one sort or other since the dawn of time, and can still get them even if they're prohibited. Hence, prisons will keep overflowing until the laws start to change.

Could be they are better at catching the bad guys then any other country........Seriously population size has a lot to do with it, here in Australia we only have 21 million people compared to America's 306 million so clearly America will have more people committing crimes.

The "liberals" write most of those laws we are required to enforce. You basically get a lot of people who made one bad mistake, and they are ruined the rest of their life. This is particularly true of the Lautenburg Amendment and VAWA.

It's really just because of our drug laws, and victimless crime laws. People lack personal responsibility, so we need to make criminals out of adults who do things that don't hurt anyone, and only affect themselves. Stupid, stupid stuff.

More people in the US commit crime than in any other democracy in the western world.

MONEY it's an industry that keeps many people employed.

Three words - insane drug policy.