US Imprisons Ten Times More Than EU Nations

The United States imprisons ten times more people on average than the northern European countries of Denmark, Sweden and Ireland and holds more than six times the proportion held by the European Union as a whole. A Eurostat study finds that the union had 123 prisoners for every 100,000 inhabitants between 2005 and 2007, compared to 758 in the United States.

Even Latvia, which has the greatest prisoner ratio in the EU at 293, has less than half the U.S. proportion. Slovenia had the lowest rate, at only 60 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants.

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