From Atrios we learn that we've won--we've finally overtaken Russia. The U.S. now has the largest prison population largest in world .

We have over 2 million in jail. That comes to 702 prisoners per 100,000 population.

On a per capita basis, according to the best available figures, the United States has three times more prisoners than Iran, four times more than Poland, five times more than Tanzania and seven times more than Germany.

The Justice Department reports that one in eight black men in their 20s and early 30s were behind bars last year, compared with 1 in 63 white men. The chance of a black man going to prison in his lifetime is one in three, the department says.

The Sentencing Project says a major cause is the war on drugs. Whereas in 1980, there were 40,000 in jail for drug crimes, now there are 450,000, "three-fourths of them black or Latino, though drug use is no higher in those groups than among whites."

(If you want more than the dry statistics, go over and read Atrios on this, he is right on the money and he'll make you laugh out loud.)