Stephan:   America has the largest gulag in the world. We have five per cent of the population, and 25 per cent of the prisoners. The movement to privatize it, and turn the warehousing of humans into a profit making activity, in my view, is one of the most pernicious trends occurring in U.S. society. We are becoming a soft police state. Soft in the sense that we maintain the illusions of a fair judiciary, and equitable democratic institutions. But data like this reveals the truth that lies beneath the appearances. Click though to to the table.