What does this have to do with what jamesaguilar posted?

> No. Surely, something else is broken.

Really? There are no other options you can think of? Perhaps the US is simply stricter? I quote from the article this image is from: "Still, it is the length of sentences that truly distinguishes American prison policy. Indeed, the mere number of sentences imposed here would not place the United States at the top of the incarceration lists."

So yup, the US is stricter, but it does not have more criminals, nor does it imprison more people.

> A graph showing a strange spike

There is no spike, this is the result of using a linear graph when it should have been a logarithmic one. (A very common mistake, and also frequently employed when trying to make a point without support in the data.) In this particular graph even better would be to normalize to the population level, but logarithmic is also OK. Either way, if you fix the graph you will find no spike.

This graph is better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1... It shows an increase, but no spike.

So why the increase? And especially why has it slowed down? Read this and you shall know: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006368

This has come up before with the Mother Jones article http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-li... This article is better in my opinion. Good discussion on HN then too. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006368