Sure didn't look american to me.... Quality sucks too badly to tell but i'd bet he was chinese. If I had to guess i'd say the kid stole something and was being punished for it. May be a little extreme but that's the way things were done for a looooooooong time, at least they didn't cut off his hands.

If there really was no reason for this (which I sorta doubt they would just randomly decide to stomp on a kids fingers for the hell of it) then this is definitely fucked up..