1. We give out longer sentences.
2. We have a lot more crimes. What we send people to jail for in the US would, in many countries, result in a fine or much lesser penalty.
In every system, there is a mechanism to chuck people out of the process. Some remove people upon arrest: bribery, who you know, having the cop just tell you to be a good kid. Some remove people after conviction: probation, rehab, plea bargaining for time served. Some remove people after sentencing: Parole, pardons, case review. While the US has had warnings for the very young, most of the time we've extended mercy late in the process than overlooking crimes at the beginning. Think of it as our Puritan heritage, if you will--don't overlook the sin, but do forgive. We've hardened our hearts, so to speak.
3. We don't have bribes as an implicit mechanism. "Who you know", for all its notoriety, hasn't ever been prominent in most of the country most of the time. Cops used to give warnings. Now we have "broken windows" and demands for zero tolerance. More arrests, less mercy at the beginning.
4. We have fewer rehab programs because somebody would have to pay for them. We also don't think they're punishment enough. Detox resorts, indeed!
5. We have less probation because we have a mobile population in a large country. Russia has less mobility. France has less country. Many countries have closer family ties and a sense of family honor so that you do stay and serve your probation. We simply have no sense of community. Turn a kid over to his family and a day later he's vanished. Or he's told he did nothing wrong, keep it up.
6. We often have a politicized judicial system where people demand that if you're convicted, you serve your time. People demand safety in their community even though the bad guys *live* in the same community and result from that community. That means you go for jail time. It means that you limit parole. It means you reduce pardons. If the population won't be responsible for their behavior, if parents can't raise their kids to be civilized, we need authoritarian parents to protect us from our peers. That might mean drug laws. It might mean white-collar crime laws.
7. People have gotten just plain nasty in their calls for justice and retribution. So we have longer sentences, minimum sentences, all kinds of add-on penalties. We have three-strikes and all kinds of "without possibility of parole". Why? Because the danged judges and juries were being too lenient. Too merciful. So much for empathy, so much for community. We were afraid. Or we wanted to make sure some other group's perps suffered.
I hear calls for justice, and I hear calls of a mob asking for somebody to be killed without much proof. How dare he lay his hand on one of us? Proof? Who needs proof?
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