USSR having double of course isn’t comparable, and the US prison rate has been going down (well, at least until 2019, after which we got COVID and prison rates saw a gigantic dip that has been climbing bit by bit since, but still lower than 2019).
And no, it’s not just splitting hairs. There’s a difference between being constantly surveiled and watched by the state, temporarily (at least nominally); and getting locked up in a festering environment where they neglect your good feeding and, in the USSR’s case, your well-being and being forced to labor, with a much stronger KGB.
The only way you get double is by massively undercounting the actual rate of incarceration in US.
There’s a difference between being constantly surveiled and watched by the state, temporarily (at least nominally); and getting locked up in a festering environment where they neglect your good feeding and, in the USSR’s case, your well-being and being forced to labor, with a much stronger KGB.
It’s amazing how you managed to write this without a hint of irony as if Snowden leaks haven’t happened. The level of surveillance that’s currently happening in US is far beyond anything KGB could’ve ever dreamed of.
It’s “amazing” how all you focus on is the intelligence part while completely ditching the difference between probation and incarceration. Of course there’s a difference between being held in a cell and having what’s basically a search warrant on you for every step of your life by court order. And on intelligence, even if you completely disregard the judicial vulnerability, the US surveillance agencies still hold far less domestic power than the KGB’s domestic cell.
Again, we’re comparing to the incarceration rate today.
There are 2 million people in the nation’s prisons and jails—a 500% increase over the last 40 years. Changes in sentencing law and policy, not changes in crime rates, explain most of this increase. These trends have resulted in prison overcrowding and fiscal burdens on states to accommodate a rapidly expanding penal system, despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not an effective means of achieving public safety.
And on intelligence, even if you completely disregard the judicial vulnerability, the US surveillance agencies still hold far less domestic power than the KGB’s domestic cell.
I refuse to believe that anybody could be stupid enough to genuinely think this.
Where is the incarceration rate? People getting held pre-trial is a problem, yes, but even then, the gulag held 2.5 million at their height in the 1950s, and that’s not even counting anyone pre-trial or adjusting for the population difference between 1950s Soviet Union and modern day USA.
I am comparing to the incarceration rate today. In 2022, the incarceration rate was 700 per 100,000. Unless you have evidence that that rate more than doubled in two years, I don’t see how the US has a higher incarceration rate.
Call me stupid all you want, do you still think incarceration vs. correctional supervision is splitting hairs?
the gulag held 2.5 million at their height in the 1950s, and that’s not even counting anyone pre-trial or adjusting for the population difference between 1950s Soviet Union and modern day USA
These numbers have been challenged by many scholars, Parenti does a great job dissecting these claims in Blackshirts and Reds. You basically cherry pick the numbers you want for USSR while downplaying the numbers in US to make your argument.
Call me stupid all you want, do you still think incarceration vs. correctional supervision is splitting hairs?
I think that you’re intentionally playing with the numbers to make your argument work.
Soviet police archives and were able to establish well-documented estimates of prison and labor camp populations. They found that the total population of the entire gulag as of January 1939, near the end of the Great Purges, was 2,022,976.[3]
[3] By way of comparison, in 1995, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in the United States there were 1.6 million in prison, three million on probation, and 700,000 on parole, for a total of 5.3 million under correctional supervision (San Francisco Chronicle, 7/1/96).
I don’t think labor camps and prison are comparable to probation and parole. Do you still want to include probation and parole? If not, I think we can safely conclude that the Soviet Union was much more authoritarian. (If you adjust it by capita, you’d have a US prison population of 1.03 million Soviet heads, which is only a few ten thousands more than half the Soviet population.) If yes, why?
USSR having double of course isn’t comparable, and the US prison rate has been going down (well, at least until 2019, after which we got COVID and prison rates saw a gigantic dip that has been climbing bit by bit since, but still lower than 2019).
And no, it’s not just splitting hairs. There’s a difference between being constantly surveiled and watched by the state, temporarily (at least nominally); and getting locked up in a festering environment where they neglect your good feeding and, in the USSR’s case, your well-being and being forced to labor, with a much stronger KGB.
The only way you get double is by massively undercounting the actual rate of incarceration in US.
It’s amazing how you managed to write this without a hint of irony as if Snowden leaks haven’t happened. The level of surveillance that’s currently happening in US is far beyond anything KGB could’ve ever dreamed of.
If you think I’m undercounting, show me a rate of incarceration per the same amount of heads for both the United States and Soviet Union. According to https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11127-009-9430-2, page 465, “At the time of Stalin’s death in 1953, the institutionalized population was over 2.5 million, or 1,558 prisoners per 100,000 population (Table 1). This incarceration rate was ten times that of the United States for the same year.” I can email you a PDF of this paper if you want. Even in modern times, the population has been decreasing since 2013 until 2022, and according to Vox, the highest per 100,00 adults never passed 700.
It’s “amazing” how all you focus on is the intelligence part while completely ditching the difference between probation and incarceration. Of course there’s a difference between being held in a cell and having what’s basically a search warrant on you for every step of your life by court order. And on intelligence, even if you completely disregard the judicial vulnerability, the US surveillance agencies still hold far less domestic power than the KGB’s domestic cell.
Again, we’re comparing to the incarceration rate today.
https://www.sentencingproject.org/research/
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2024.html
https://nicic.gov/resources/nic-library/all-library-items/growth-incarceration-united-states-exploring-causes-and
I refuse to believe that anybody could be stupid enough to genuinely think this.
Where is the incarceration rate? People getting held pre-trial is a problem, yes, but even then, the gulag held 2.5 million at their height in the 1950s, and that’s not even counting anyone pre-trial or adjusting for the population difference between 1950s Soviet Union and modern day USA.
I am comparing to the incarceration rate today. In 2022, the incarceration rate was 700 per 100,000. Unless you have evidence that that rate more than doubled in two years, I don’t see how the US has a higher incarceration rate.
Call me stupid all you want, do you still think incarceration vs. correctional supervision is splitting hairs?
These numbers have been challenged by many scholars, Parenti does a great job dissecting these claims in Blackshirts and Reds. You basically cherry pick the numbers you want for USSR while downplaying the numbers in US to make your argument.
I think that you’re intentionally playing with the numbers to make your argument work.
Fine, we are both picking figures. If you think the numbers I gave are wrong, give me sourced numbers about the same thing that are right.
Chapter 5 here, references at the end of the book, can also read chapter 6 showing how incarceration rate jumped up dramatically after transition to capitalism https://welshundergroundnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/blackshirts-and-reds-by-michael-parenti.pdf
I don’t think labor camps and prison are comparable to probation and parole. Do you still want to include probation and parole? If not, I think we can safely conclude that the Soviet Union was much more authoritarian. (If you adjust it by capita, you’d have a US prison population of 1.03 million Soviet heads, which is only a few ten thousands more than half the Soviet population.) If yes, why?