Robert Naiman wrote: >So how does the U.S. look compared to other OECD countries if you count >institutionalized adults as part of the population? Can one also account >for the role of the military? Well I was going to have a chart of international incarceration comparisons, as part of the quarterly social indicator page I'm doing for the Nation, but the magazine's editor didn't find mass incarceration an appropriate topic. So I'll do it for LBO. Here's a hint: no OECD country comes anywhere close to U.S. incarceration rates. #1 is Russia (out of 180 studied); #2 is the U.S. Here are a few countries per 100,000). About 20 will be charted in the next LBO. INCARCERATION RATES per 100,000 population, mid-1990s Russia 685 USA 645 Israel 190 S Korea 155 Portugal 145 United Kingdom 125 Canada 115 Mexico 110 France 90 Japan 40 If you counted all U.S. prisoners as unemployed, it would push up the U rate from around 4.3% to 5.6%. Details also forthcoming in LBO. Doug