The next time someone tells you how awful and violent American society has become, and how very much we have to learn from our more sophisticated betters, just send them my way.
And I’ll send them here:
Crime and punishment
A list of countries and their latest total of recorded crimes, including attempted crimes, per 100,000 population:
1. Iceland 21,211
2. Sweden 13,837
3. United Kingdom 11,014
4. Finland 10,005
5. Belgium 9,422
6. Denmark 9,137
7. Netherlands 8,813
8. Canada 8,025
9. Germany 7,888
10. Austria 6.464
11. South Africa 5,915
12. Luxembourg 5,866
13. Malta 4,288
14. Switzerland 4,220
15. Slovenia 4,160
16. Hungary 4,142
17. United States 4,119
18. Uruguay 3,98719. Italy 3,868
20. Chile 3,810
SOURCE: THE ECONOMIST’S POCKET WORLD IN FIGURES
Very interesting. Especially since Canada is #8, yet recently blamed the U.S. for all their crime. Hmph!
I guess I’m not entirely surprised, Kris. A high crime rate doesn’t comport very well with their self-image, I should think…
I wonder if the higher crime rates in EU countries is due to their apparent tendency to criminalize nearly every impure thought, word, or deed.
For example:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/02/18/nxeno18.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/02/18/ixnewstop.html
Interesting thought, Steve. I wonder if the standings would change if only crimes were tallied.
Hmmm “recorded crimes, including attempted crimes”
Scanning the top ten I can see that their restrictive gun laws ain’t helping them and in fact may be hurting them….
Must be our “right to bear arms” that keeps our rate down. Plus, all the Red State’s concealed carry efforts might make petty criminals think twice before strong arming a purse.
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I wonder what they select as being a “crime.”
I mean, maybe Iceland includes jaywalking in their list of offenses?
More data needed for rational conclusion to be drawn.
oy mate – check the homocide and gun related death rates – then you’ll see the US up there with such notables as Colombia, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Phillipines, Russia, Estonia, Latvia.
Turns out a lot of the figures are rubbery – quote;
“FBI Uniform Crime Index covering murder and non-negligent manslaughter,
manslaughter by negligence, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary,
larceny-theft, and theft of motor vehicles but excludes arson and drugs offences. USA
.. Data not available.”
So it turns out the USA figures exclude drug offenses.
And other nations include traffic offences.
Oops – should include some cites
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hosb502.pdf
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/crime_cicp_survey_seventh.html
My only point being that statistics don’t tell the whole truth, and sometimes it’s better to go to the source rather than the journalist reporting someone elses ‘fact.’
Well, I guess there’s always a different way to shade what should be a relatively easy comparison to make. But if there’s a place including traffic offenses as “crimes,” then that’s a place I don’t think I’d very much like to live.
Talk about your nanny states
Ths US is unique among the Western idustrialized states. We have the right to bear arms (w/caveats), except of course in all the major blue-zone cities (NY, DC, SF, etc.) where the muder rate is very high.
Europeans and other western socities do not understand why we kept arms and didn’t acquiecse to not hunting the King’s Deer. To make a point they call us “Cowboys”. Hardly a disparaging slur to a guy like myself or even GW, but nonetheless, it’s something they wield like a “tackhammer” at times. I say *yawn* to that because if it wasn’t for the American “cowboy syndrome” they’d all have been speaking German for a long time.
I just call it jealousy because cowboys always get the good-looking chicks. LOL.
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re: “cowboys always get the good-looking chicks”
Not on “Brokeback Mountain,” they didn’t
*ducking and running*
I’ll bet you even paid $10.00 to see that “artistic” (left pinky extended) movie Lex!
Cowboys have been assumed to be straight for the last hundred years by all accounts. It was inevitable that Hollywood would come out with a movie like that..to tear down even the most iconoclastic images. Of course I ain’t talking about that crappy flick I didn’t like when it came out in the early ’70′s- “Midnight Cowboy”. I don’t like those ratzo Rizzo type blue-zone characters me-self.
This Linear Cowboy sleeps in his own sleeping bag- thanks.
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Pay for art? Never. I’m more of a sci-fi, shoot-em-up fan meself. Give me “Serenity” for example, or any movie in which a hot girl in latex is shooting machineguns out of both fists and I’m quite content.
In another word you like them thar fantasies like that Jolie woman with the outrageous lips or that slippery Charlize gal as assassin in latex, or that Tarantino’s wife trying to kill Bill….Them’s all ball-busters Lex fer sure..must be something psycho-scatalogical there….
Sci-fi movies? Best Sci-Fi movie I saw was on cruise in ’78. “Flesh Gordon” I think it was called.
Me? I’ll take Gus in “Lonesome Dove” breaking that bartenders nose for being “surly” and cut’n cards for a “poke” w/darlin Lorie…. pure entertainment son.
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