West Virginia's female incarceration rate is 55 times greater than Ireland's

Among American states (and everywhere else, for that matter) Louisiana has by far the highest general incarceration rate. But what about women only? The Prison Policy Initiative investigated, and found that West Virginia is the leader in that category by a wide margin, with 273 out of every 100,000 women locked up. It's followed by Oklahoma, Kentucky, Alabama, and Arizona:

(PrisonPolicy.org / click to enlarge)

Scroll way, way down the chart, and you'll find peer nations in Europe and elsewhere. Australia comes in at 23; Mexico at 21. But Ireland and Denmark are tied for very lowest among industrialized nations with a rate of five. That's less than two percent of West Virginia's rate. Yikes.

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Check out the full report from PPI here.