What country prisoner statistics can tell us

When I wrote a blog post yesterday about transgender prisoners in California yesterday I was totally surprised how few female prisoners there are compared to male prisoners. Only less than 4% of all prisoners in California are female.

It turns out that on a global scale only about 5% of all prisoners are female. This is a huge gender inequality. Are women indeed so much less prone to commit crimes? Are women not often companions of male criminals, but they are not involved in the crimes? I was a bit stunned about this heavily lopsided statistics. Is this mostly due to the tendency that women commit less severe crimes than men. For arguments sake, from a feminism perspective, does this mean the patriarchy is so chivalrous as to protect women from prison convictions?

Another surprising fact seems to be that quite a few countries, in particular European countries have a large portion of foreigners as prisoners. A very special case is Switzerland with 70% foreign prisoners. This seems to be peculiar too.

As far as the United States is concerned it stands out with 629 prisoners per 100,000 population that is about 4 times the global average. Is that one of the reasons why so called progressive district attorneys are soft on crime?
At least in the U.S. about 10% of all prisoners are female.

			Female Prisoners		Foreign Prisoners		Minors/Juveniles
Region	Country	Prisoners per 100K pop.	Percentage of prison pop.	Per 100K pop.	Percentage of prison pop.	Per 100K pop.	Percentage of prison pop.	Per 100K pop.
Africa	Egypt	117	3.7%	4	1.0%	1	N/A
Africa	Ethiopia	99	4.2%	4	N/A		N/A
Africa	Nigeria	33	1.8%	1	0.3%	0	1.7%	1
Africa	South Africa	235	2.4%	6	10.5%	25	0.0%	0
America	Argentina	235	3.8%	9	5.1%	12	0.0%	0
America	Brazil	381	5.1%	19	0.3%	1	0.0%	0
America	Canada	104	5.6%	6	N/A	N/A	2.6%	3
America	Chile	221	7.4%	16	3.4%	8	0.1%	0
America	Mexico	172	5.7%	10	1.2%	2	4.3%	7
America	U.S.	629	10.3%	65	7.3%	46	0.2%	1
Asia	Australia	165	7.5%	12	17.1%	28	0.0%	0
Asia	Bangladesh	49	3.9%	2	0.6%	0	0.7%	0
Asia	China	119	8.6%	10	0.4%	0	0.8%	1
Asia	India	35	4.1%	1	1.0%	0	0.0%	0
Asia	Indonesia	99	5.0%	5	0.4%	0	0.9%	1
Asia	Japan	37	8.5%	3	5.8%	2	0.0%	0
Asia	Pakistan	38	1.6%	1	1.2%	0	1.6%	1
Asia	Philippines	151	10.3%	16	0.3%	0	1.0%	2
Asia	South Korea	105	7.3%	8	4.7%	5	1.6%	2
Asia	Vietnam	130	12.1%	16	0.4%	1	N/A
Europe	Belgium	90	4.9%	4	44.2%	40	0.0%	0
Europe	Denmark	72	4.8%	3	26.9%	19	0.2%	0
Europe	France	105	4.4%	5	24.6%	26	1.0%	1
Europe	Germany	71	5.8%	4	25.5%	18	2.2%	2
Europe	Italy	93	4.3%	4	31.3%	29	0.3%	0
Europe	Netherlands	66	4.6%	3	23.1%	15	1.5%	1
Europe	Poland	194	4.7%	9	2.4%	5	1.4%	3
Europe	Spain	116	7.2%	8	28.9%	34	0.0%	0
Europe	Sweden	70	5.8%	4	22.1%	15	0.3%	0
Europe	Switzerland	72	6.0%	4	70.1%	50	0.7%	1
Europe	Turkey	374	3.9%	15	3.8%	14	0.7%	3
Europe	United Kingdom	133	4.0%	5	12.1%	16	0.4%	1
Middle East	Israel	168	1.0%	2	38.9%	65	2.3%	4
Middle East	Saudi Arabia	207	1.9%	4	49.0%	101	0.9%	2
	Average	147	5.4%	8	14.5%	18	0.9%	1

Notes on the data:

1. Source: https://www.prisonstudies.org/
   
2. I selected primarily countries with large population. Less so for Europe
3. 100K means 100,000
4. There are some questions about how foreign prisoners are defined on a country by country basis
5. Some of the country data is several years old
6. Some countries appear to report 0% for juveniles/minors
7. The accuracy or reliability of the data maybe in doubt for some of the countries
8. Argentina and South Africa have both 235 prisoners per 100,000 population. This not my mistake.