I thought that the American government had the worst ratio of free citizens/incarcerated citizens ...
We have huge issues from generations of politics over substance. It's only obvious that things are getting worse when you look at statistics because nobody has unbiased understanding of the entire system.
To call it 'worst' is a value judgment and not an objective statement, any more than saying the abortion or divorce rate is better or worse.
I think it’s reasonable to say that the highest incarceration rate is the worst rate, regardless of the reasons. Whether it’s due to an excessively harsh system, high rates of damaging criminality, whatever it is, they’re all bad whatever they are. Surely the ideal number of wrongly convicted people, and the ideal number of legitimately convicted people, and the ideal number of criminals that have escaped justice are all as low as possible?
Similarly for abortion and divorce. Even people who believe abortion should be an option would prefer there to be no need for it. Every one of them is a tragedy no matter which side of the debate you’re on. Same for Divorce.
In the case of the number of legitimately convicted people, you seem to think zero is the ideal. In a sense, I think we can probably all agree. But what we really want is the number of people committing crimes to be zero. If it is not zero, then surely the ideal number of people legitimately convicted is equal to the number of people who have committed crimes. If it is not, then we are saying we want people who have committed crimes to walk free. So in this sense, "worst" is, in fact, a judgment.
But "everyone" agreeing doesn't even mean something isn't a judgment. There is no objective "worst". And in the case of divorce, you're wrong. Divorce has been hugely beneficial for women's equality, and my own personal divorce was definitely not a tragedy.
Why does that matter here?
The very laws which a large % of them broke (drug laws) are not based on objective statements.
Common misconception, but that's not actually the case - best numbers show about 15% of prisoners are in with drug charges.
[1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/releasing-drug-offender...
That's incorrect. The source says ~16% had, as their most serious offence, a drug charge.
So in reality more than 16% are serving time for drug crimes. It seems a bit disingenuous that the statistic is posed like that, especially when considering the cyclical nature of incarceration,"3 strikes" laws, and the cascading violence caused by drug laws.