Summary: I gnaw on a grim statistic. It is this: The United States has the highest imprisonment rate of any country in the world. What is it about the "American Way of Life" that has 686 of every 100000 people or at least 1372 male adult prisoners out of every 10000 adult males.

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The following from Roy Walmsley of the British Home Office

World Prison Population List (fourth edition)
Roy Walmsley(publications.rds@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk © Crown copyright 2003 ISSN 1473-8406)
The World Prison Population List gives details of the number of prisoners held in some 205 independent countries and dependent territories. It shows the differences in the level of imprisonment across the world and makes possible an estimate of the world prison population total.

Key points

• More than 8.75 million people are held in penal institutions throughout the world, mostly as pre-trial detainees (remand prisoners) or having been convicted and sentenced. About half of these are in the United States (1.96m), Russia (0.92m) or China (1.43m plus pre-trial detainees and prisoners in ‘administrative detention’).
• The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world, some 686 per 100,000 of the national population, followed by the Cayman Islands (664), Russia (638), Belarus (554), Kazakhstan (522), Turkmenistan (489), Belize (459), Bahamas (447), Suriname (437) and Dominica (420).
• However, more than three-fifths of countries (62.5%) have rates below 150 per 100,000. (The United Kingdom’s rate of 139 per 100,000 of the national population places it above the midpoint in the World List; it is now the highest among countries of the European Union.)
• Prison population rates vary considerably between different regions of the world, and between different parts of the same continent. For example:
  • in Africa the median rate for western and central African countries is 50 whereas for southern African countries it is 362;
  • in the Americas the median rate for south American countries is 107 whereas for Caribbean countries it is 297;
  • in Asia the median rate for south central Asian countries (mainly the Indian sub-continent) is 54 whereas for (ex-Soviet) central Asian countries it is 426;
  • in Europe the median rate for southern European countries is 69 whereas for central and eastern European countries it is 213;
  • in Oceania (including Australia and New Zealand) the median rate is 110.
• Prison populations are growing in many parts of the world. Updated information on countries included in the previous editions of the World Prison Population List shows that prison populations have risen in 68% of these countries (in 61% of countries in Africa, 68% in the Americas, 87% in Asia, 65% in Europe and 50% in Oceania).

Finally, I have to add that if instead of working the period 1999-2003 (what I believe to be the period for Walmsley's report) we study the period from 1977 to 2003 (what I could get from US prison statistics), the increase of the ratio of male prisoners four-fold over that 26 year period.

I would have to say that in this, a, if not 'the', center of corporate way of thinking, there is a disturbingly high, and rapidly growing, tithe that males, in particular have to pay. Are the benefits of corporatism so high to be worth this? What is it about the grey flannel suit and the bottom line mentality that hurts members of my gender the most?