World Day for International Justice

Following disease outbreaks and overcrowding in its prisons in the late 1990s, the Russian government took deliberate steps to lower its inmate population. Today, the country incarcerates roughly 681,000 inmates, about the same per capita as the state of New Jersey.

According to the New York Times, Germany and the Netherlands incarcerate citizens at a rate roughly one-tenth the rate of the U.S., and sentence prisoners to jails that focus on rehabilitation and reentering society.

Many Latin American countries, from Brazil to Costa Rica to Mexico, have banned life imprisonment altogether.

It is exceedingly difficult to find a job after prison; as many as three out of four people remain unemployed a year after being released.