Data Is Beautiful

The Gulag at the peak housed about 7,500 per 100k of the Soviet population.

(And yes, the US's 531 is still also an atrocity.)

Where did you get 329? I actually couldn't find any post-Kruschev numbers, but I know after privatization, Russia was pretty competitive with the US's dystopian nightmare.

Ha, that is fair. I was just poking fun at dessalines's habit of giving a free pass to any country that is openly mauling and torturing its citizens as long as they wear the right color hat. But yes, it is fully accurate that the US's prison system is an authoritarian nightmare that preys on its minority population without rest or mercy. And, comparing the US against countries which don't even make the claim of being "democratic" and finding it competitive with the worst of the open tyrannies is maybe fair.

Also, I just looked, and I don't think these numbers are accurate. I think they're straight-up ignoring some countries with millions of people, and I think its numbers are about 8 years out of date. The US incarceration rate has been falling back down to merely horrifying levels after the Stalinist peak it rose to after Reagan+Clinton teamed up to ruin the world.

US Incarceration Rate

List of Countries by Incarceration Rate

The majority of states in our land of wonderful freedoms are newly competitive with such beacons of freedom as El Salvador, Rwanda, and Turkmenistan. The march of progress!