At some point in this decade they will hit 1 out of every 100 people are in prison in the US.
If you don't think there is something seriously wrong with that percentage and how two decades ago it was a fraction of that number, then you are far too trusting, isolated or innocent to the world.
Felony laws and prison sentences are made much harsher based on heavy lobbying.
You realize that the number of people in jail and prison labor are orthogonal issues, right?
One can both oppose our war on drug users (near as I can tell, the main source of our excess prisoners) and China's war on the Falun Gong, but also have no objection to forcing robbers/rapists/murderers to work for their keep.
They are most certainly not. Presumably the base rate of bad people in the human population does not vary greatly from country to country, yet the rate of jailed people does. It follows that many people in jail in countries with a high rate of incarceration arguably ought not be there; and making life harder for them is wrong.
Or to put it another way, arguing from justice, along the lines of Rawls' original position and veil of ignorance[1]. If you didn't know whether or not you were to end up a prisoner, you ought to have some concern about how they are treated; and your concern should logically follow in direct proportion to how many of them are imprisoned.
Presumably the base rate of bad people in the human population does not vary greatly from country to country,
That's an empirical question. I wouldn't presume one way or the other on that issue until I had some data. (I would, of course, have to define "bad people" in some reasonable way that would work cross-culturally to gather my data.)
Well, if it is true that the rate of "bad people" does vary greatly from country to country, it justifies xenophobia, racism and a lot of other nasty things, potentially even genocide on a utilitarian basis. I take it as a given that it doesn't vary much primarily because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate. It would imply that people are not created equal (in a human rights context) and in particular do not deserve equal treatment. It really opens up a whole can of worms.
Oh, I see your concern, but I was thinking of cases in which, for example, one country rather than another has much higher rates of some kind of overt behavior that societies around the world generally agree is criminal (rape comes to mind) although the causation of the different rates is something that is malleable (e.g., attitudes toward women). I probably agree with you as to starting assumption about human nature in an idealized condition before societal influences start their work on individuals, but perhaps think (having lived in more than one country) that countries just might differ in social conditions that make criminal behavior more or less likely for otherwise indistinguishable individuals. This all gets back to the issue of what the definition of "bad people" is, as I noted in my first post to which you have kindly replied.
As of 2009, it was 0.743%. In 1999, it was around 0.7%, and in 1989 it was 0.426%. So expecting it to hit 1% sometime this decade might be a stretch, unless the trends accelerate - it seems that the rate of increase is leveling off a bit, and hitting 1% by 2020 would be a greater increase in the next 9 years than occurred over the previous 20 (in 1991 it was just under 0.5%).
If you don't think there is something seriously wrong with that percentage and how two decades ago it was a fraction of that number, then you are far too trusting, isolated or innocent to the world.
Felony laws and prison sentences are made much harsher based on heavy lobbying.