To call the US a “police state” just sounds wrong. We reserve that title for banana republics and tin pot dictators. But what do we call ourselves now that we imprison more of our population than other nations we have traditionally called “police states?” We have long called communist China a “police state,” for example. But even with four times as many people, they can no longer keep up with our prison population. In fact, according to this article by Glen Ford of the Black Agenda, if you just take the people of color imprisoned in the US you have roughly the same number as the entire prison population of China. I wonder if we could sell them our national anthem? “Home of the free” just doesn’t seem to fit us any more.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/08/31-5