Today’s comparison: Number of prisoners.

You’ll hear a lot about the people China puts in its prisons (mainly because we are morally outraged by these “crimes”). To many unenlightened people, China is a scary place — Big Brother and all that. While, yes, you can get put in jail seemingly on a whim, and your good standing can change faster than you can fork over a hong bao, most of the time, China is freer than love at a hippie camp.

According to the Daily Paul (via NationMaster), the U.S. has 2,019,234 prisoners, enough for first place in the world. China has about half a million fewer prisoners, 1,549,000 prisoners, which is enough for second.

The U.S. — land of the free, as my father is fond of reminding me, sarcastically.

So what, you say? China has about 1 billion more people than the U.S. Per-capita-wise, the U.S. is still first (715 per 100,000 people), while China —

China fell all the way to 71st (119 per 100,000 people). It’s almost as “free” as Canada and Australia, who are tied at 73. Then again, do we trust these numbers?