The United States prisoner rate (number of prisoners per 100,000 people) is 737, the highest in the world, followed by Russia at 615. We have well over two million people behind bars.
And, as I reported here recently, “In 2017, the most recent year for which complete data are available, 39,773 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a death rate of more than 10 per 100,000 people. At the same time, our number of guns per hundred people was 120.5—we have more guns than people in the U.S. With less than 5 percent of the world’s population, we have about 46 percent of the world’s civilian-owned guns.”
Is there a relationship between these two extreme figures? What does it tell us about our country that we have more people per capita in prison that any other nation and the highest rate of gun ownership among the developed countries of the world?
I conclude that we must find a different way. Are we really a nation of jailbirds and gun toters? I request comments from readers of this blog.
Tom Glenn, Writer 