The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. A large, large, large portion of inmates are due to the War on Drugs, which is obviously very political. Not to mention the disproportionate imprisonment of minorities...
That's probably because the DPRK doesn't release reliable stats.
Also, while you may get indeed thrown in jail for drug possession in the US, in North Korea you, your wife, your parents and your children would end up in labor camp, eating undigested corn kernels out of pig shit and dying of starvation or dysentery in a few years.
Erm, parent didn't originally compare US to DPRK. That honor goes to the top post.
Anyways, which country would the poster want to live in: the DPRK, or the USA? We are lucky enough to vote with our feet (well, in the USA we can); some Europeans even...gasp...come to the great USA sh*thole to live/work and actually...really not kidding...enjoy it enough not to leave. We aren't even kidnapping them...they pay for the airfares themselves!
I was making a point about the U.S. per capita incarceration rate. Shown here on Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcerat.... It is dismal and countering with North Korea's injustice system being hypothetically worse doesn't make it better.
So America has its problems, we can list them out and maybe deal with them (or not) depending on how people feel about them (e.g. we have a functioning political system).
DPRK has even bigger problems. Any fixes will be hard in coming, and will probably be painful when they do. Its a whole different "screwed up" from how the Europeans think the USA is "screwed up."
Yes, it's well known that entire families are punished for the "crimes" of a individual. There was an article a while back that tells the story of a child that was actually born in prison and who eventually escapes NK. Chilling story.
As for eating corn out of pig shit, it's not that much of a stretch. During the last famine, eating grass was commonplace.
Not to mention a recent story where Kim Jong Un had his ex-girlfriend and colleagues shot, then had their families shipped off to a prison camp. Wow, no wonder Dennis Rodman likes hanging with that guy.
What I'm saying is, it's not that simple.