That’s just splitting hairs, but even going with your numbers, it’s clearly comparable to the time of peak incarcerations in USSR. So, if we look at how the systems evolve over time, USSR incarceration rate dropped, while US incarceration rate continues to climb.
USSR having double of course isn’t comparable, and the US prison rate has been going down (well, at least until 2019, after which we got COVID and prison rates saw a gigantic dip that has been climbing bit by bit since, but still lower than 2019).
And no, it’s not just splitting hairs. There’s a difference between being constantly surveiled and watched by the state, temporarily (at least nominally); and getting locked up in a festering environment where they neglect your good feeding and, in the USSR’s case, your well-being and being forced to labor, with a much stronger KGB.
The only way you get double is by massively undercounting the actual rate of incarceration in US.
There’s a difference between being constantly surveiled and watched by the state, temporarily (at least nominally); and getting locked up in a festering environment where they neglect your good feeding and, in the USSR’s case, your well-being and being forced to labor, with a much stronger KGB.
It’s amazing how you managed to write this without a hint of irony as if Snowden leaks haven’t happened. The level of surveillance that’s currently happening in US is far beyond anything KGB could’ve ever dreamed of.
If you think I’m undercounting, show me a rate of incarceration per the same amount of heads for both the United States and Soviet Union. According to https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11127-009-9430-2, page 465, “At the time of Stalin’s death in 1953, the institutionalized population was over 2.5 million, or 1,558 prisoners per 100,000 population (Table 1). This incarceration rate was ten times that of the United States for the same year.” I can email you a PDF of this paper if you want. Even in modern times, the population has been decreasing since 2013 until 2022, and according to Vox, the highest per 100,00 adults never passed 700.
It’s “amazing” how all you focus on is the intelligence part while completely ditching the difference between probation and incarceration. Of course there’s a difference between being held in a cell and having what’s basically a search warrant on you for every step of your life by court order. And on intelligence, even if you completely disregard the judicial vulnerability, the US surveillance agencies still hold far less domestic power than the KGB’s domestic cell.
