The Criminal Justice System

Why do we have more prisoners per 100,000 population then any one, including the Russians? I do enjoy that the comments blame it on capitalism, because we have private prison guards, etc. I do wonder if it is at least partially because of capitalism, but not in the way the commenters think. Perhaps, it's that we're more "cowboy" capitalistic? So, more extreme winners and losers. Although, I'm not sure that's really true anyways. I do think think some of it is the war on drugs. Some of it is the almost inability to know if you're violating a law because of the law's complexity. But, most of it is, as it always seems to be, the "median" voter and what they want.