one of the cited lawprofs pointed to democracy as the reason for high u.s. incarceration rates. yeesh — i get the whole “lack of civil service institutional buffer” thing, but c’mon. fortunately, marc mauer pointed out that each of these semi-united states have wildly divergent incarceration rates: minnesota (with a rate of 300 per 100k) looks more like sweden (80 per 100k) than like texas (1000 per 100k). would anyone but a carpetbagging dallas stars fan suggest that texas is 3.3 times more democratic than minnesota? or, worse, that texans are 12 times more democratic than swedes?