Chuck

Yeah, because America's become softer and gentler.

Can I talk about El Salvador for a second?

Because I looked into their incredibly high incarceration rates.

I didn't check that out, but I got this other stuff about it.

How about that?

Sure.

So they have essentially established an authoritarian crackdown on gangs.

And in 2015, their murder rate was 103 people per 100,000 population, which means every year more than 1% of their population was murdered.

So they cracked down on gangs and just started throwing everybody in jail.

And between 2015 and 2022, their murder rate went from 103 per 100,000 to 7.8 per 100,000.

Which you're like, OK, that's actually, I mean, authoritarian crackdowns on gangs and prisons is...

Not very tasteful, but at least they got results.

Here in the United States, we don't have the same excuse for that level of rise in incarceration.

Our homicide rate in 1955 was 4.5.

In 2020...

Four, it was like five.

It's remained relatively flat, give or take a few points like here or there over the years.

So there's no reason why our prison population should have increased 700%.

It just, there's no reason for it.

Unless you expand crimes, especially nonviolent crimes like drug possession, and really throw the book at people, which is what happened during that time.