Prison in Context

Here's one reader's take on America's sky-high incarceration rate:

One thing to considered when considering this issue is that China has a much lower prisoner population because they summarily execute a lot of prisoners and what I would call unreliable record keeping of prisons as they are an autocratic regime. That isn't to say that the high prison population in the US is something to ignore, it's important to put everything into context.

Those are some decent points, but I'm not really sure that context changes the fact that we still have a frighteningly large proportion of people incarcerated here.