Estatisticas deformadas: numero de presos nos EUA

A matéria abaixo é viciosa, mas eu a transcrevo ainda assim.
Ela coloca no mesmo plano os EUA e outros países quanto ao número de encarcerados, sem sequer se interrogar sobre a natureza dos crimes ou o funcionamento do sistema judicial e a chamada "due defense", que existe nos EUA e é praticamente desconhecida na maior parte dos demais países.
Enfim, não é das coisas mais inteligentes já postadas aqui, e talvez seja mesmo uma das mais estúpidas, mas sempre podemos ficar um pouco mais inteligentes vendo coisas estúpidas...

Thanks to War on Drugs, U.S. is World's #1 Jailer

This is a post to recognize the 40th anniversary of the day in 1971 that President Nixon declared that the U.S. government would start waging a "War on Drugs" war on peaceful Americans who chose to use intoxicants not approved of by the U.S. government (HT: Don B.).

Q: Which repressive country puts the most people in jail for violating government laws?

A. Iran
B. Saudi Arabia
C. Libya
D. Egypt
E. United States of America

Well, it's not even close..............

World Rank, 2010- Country - Prisoners per 100,000 Population
#1 - U.S.A. - 743
37 - Tunisia - 297
52 - Turkmenistan - 224
53 - Iran - 223
61 - Libya - 200
61 - Mexico - 200
69 - Colombia - 180
70 - Saudi Arabia - 178
92 - Bahrain - 149
116 - China - 120
126 - Venezuela - 114
137 - Iraq - 101
140 - Ethiopia - 98
150 - Egypt - 89
156 - Yemen - 83
185 - Syria - 58
187 - Afghanistan - 56
198 - Sudan - 45
198 - Pakistan - 45

The table above shows how the 2010 U.S. prison incarceration rate (prisoners per 100,000 population) compares to some of the roughest countries in the world. The full list of 216 countries is here, the countries above were selected as some of the world's most repressive regimes (Iran, Saudi Arabia and Libya), some of the world's least economically free countries (Venezuela, Turkmenistan, Sudan, Afghanistan, according to the Heritage Foundation), and some countries with the biggest narco-terrorism problems (Colombia and Mexico).

But none of them even come close to the incarceration rate of the World's #1 Jailer - the United States, largely because of the "War on Drugs" war against peaceful Americans using intoxicants currently not approved of by the U.S. government (see chart below).

Note that in the full list of countries, neighboring Canada ranks #124 (117 prisoners per 100,000), and countries with liberalized drug laws like Portugal rank #128 (112 per 100,000) and Netherlands ranks #145 (94 per 100,000).