Crime, Punishment, Firearms

Throughout this study, there have been just a few times when the United States has been Number One, and some of those Number Ones, like adult and child obesity, highest infant and maternal mortality, opioid addiction, and number of homeless, are not the kind that any nation should be proud of. Here we find multiple Number Ones: largest prison population, highest incarceration rate, deadliest of OECD cities, most mass murders, and more.

“Not only does the US have the highest incarceration rate in the world; every single US state incarcerates more people per capita than virtually any independent democracy on earth. . . No other country incarcerates as many people, including countries with similar rates of “violent crime:” — Prison Policy Initiative (2021)

We know of no other democracy besides the United States in which convicted offenders who have served their sentences are nonetheless disenfranchised for life.—The Sentencing Project of Human Rights Watch (1998)

Trump Administration Actions

👎 Trump Department of Justice dismantles Biden-era gun policies, rescinding “zero-tolerance” policy aimed at firearms dealers who don’t comply with federal gun sales laws, and cutting a deal to allow sales of trigger mechanisms that modify semiautomatic guns to fire more rapidly. (April, May 2025).

Attorney General Pam Bondi explained, “This Department of Justice believes that the 2nd Amendment is not a second-class right. The prior administration’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ policy unfairly targeted law-abiding gun owners and created an undue burden on Americans seeking to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms—it ends today.” Emma Brown of the gun control advocacy group Giffords said this will make the country less safe. “The impact here is simple: putting gun dealers who break the law back in business will increase crime. Reckless dealers who are willing to sell guns to traffickers and criminals have been given our president’s seal of approval at the cost of Americans’ safety.”

Source: Perry Stein, “Attorney General Pam Bondi Begins Dismantling Biden-era Gun Policies,” Washington Post, April 7, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/04/08/bondi-justice-atf-zeo-tolerance-policy/