The global stereotype remains that America is a largely lawless country, where death stalks the streets of New York every day and where casual visitors are likely to be gunned down by paranoid neighbors or policemen.
Yet this stereotype does not reflect reality, for a variety of reasons. The picture of America that emerges from a careful review of the evidence is one of a relatively crime-free society, one that should perhaps be proud of rather than apologetic for its crime rate.
America has, as everyone knows, the worst murder rate in the developed word. Yet this does not necessarily mean that America is the world's crime capital. Murder is, in itself, not a particularly good indicator of overall crime levels. Some of the nation's demographic characteristics are also unique among industrialized countries and may account for a great deal of the difference. Once these factors are borne in mind, the use of the headline murder rate to distinguish America from other countries in terms of crime seems less appropriate.
Murder rates are normally expressed in numbers of crimes per 100,000 people. This should immediately make apparent the rarity of the crime. Murder is by far the least common serious crime and needs to be understood in that context. In Western Europe, the murder rate is around 1-2 per 100,000. In Spain, in Eastern European countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, and in what are sometimes termed the "Anglosphere" countries, such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the murder rate is normally between 2 and 3 per 100,000. America, by contrast, has a widely varying murder rate, ranging from just over 10 per 100,000 in 1991 to the current level of around five per 100,000.
Various reasons have been suggested for America's large homicide rate, from the high rate of firearms use in crime, through the effects of the war on drugs, to the after-effects of slavery on the urban African-American community. All of these may indeed be factors in the height of the murder rate, but none of them provides a single overwhelming answer that explains it all.
The simple truth is that America has a great deal of unique characteristics that affect one or more factors in the murder rate. It should be noted, for instance, that most countries of British descent have a higher murder rate than Western Europe (the exception being England itself, although the rate there has been rising over recent years). This is probably due to the more liberal political atmospheres in these countries, descending from a belief in individual liberty that has the unfortunate side effect of allowing the less law-abiding members of society more leeway to commit crimes. America obviously shares this trait.
We also need to bear in mind the presence in America of a community that has no direct parallel in any other Western nation. The African-American community has a massive homicide rate, around 26 per 100,000, but reaching as high as 50.4 in 1991. These numbers, similar to or higher than Russia's enormous homicide rate (19.9 in 1997), contribute most of America's murder rate. The "white" community in America, which also includes most Hispanics, comparatively has a much lower homicide rate at around three per 100,000. This number is not particularly out of line for Anglosphere countries, although it is definitely on the higher end.
Many reasons have been given for the high homicide rate among African-Americans, but it is probably a combination of two predominant factors. First, the depredations of the drug trade, most notably during the crack cocaine boom in the early-mid 90s (the homicide rate seems to have fallen in line with a transition to marijuana "blunts" as the drug of choice in the community). My colleague Eli Lehrer, an expert in urban crime analysis, has pointed out that "The most likely person to murder you is your fellow drug dealer." This also means that murders are highly concentrated in certain areas. Eighty five percent of US counties experience no homicides, which rather gives the lie to the argument that America generally is a dangerous place. Second, the legacy of slavery, as Professor James Q. Wilson of Pepperdine has argued, has made family structure and community solidarity much less pronounced among African Americans, which has led to problems with fatherlessness and family breakdown that in turn lead to greater disrespect for the law and a male youth culture based around aggression.
Despite the prominence of the American murder rate, however, it does not by itself signify that America is that much more lawless a country than others with smaller homicide rates. We know that it is not because other comparative studies show America to be much less subject to crime than other developed countries. Comparing crime rates from different countries is often an exercise in folly. Definitions of offenses differ, even between countries with similar legal codes, which means they are often not directly comparable.
In addition, there are differences between the way in which police record crime (in one country, for instance, a homicide might be listed as a murder before there is any investigation as to whether it was justifiable or excusable, while in another it might enter the statistics only after exhaustive investigations prove it was a murder). Crime surveys, on the other hand, which are often used to assess the true extent of crime, including crimes not reported to the police, often suffer in comparability because of differences in the way the questions are asked.
There is, however, one measure of crime internationally that avoids these problems. The International Crime Victims Survey is conducted about every other year. It asks a representative sample of the population in many countries the same questions about their experience with crime.
There have been four international "sweeps" of the ICVS since 1989, the most recent in 2000, giving us a good idea of the direction crime has taken over the past decade. While the actual figures might be unreliable as indications of actual crime levels in a country, they nevertheless provide us with a very good tool for comparing the levels of crime in different countries.
It should come as no surprise that the United States fared worst for crime overall in 1989, when the latest American crime wave was nearing its peak. But it might be surprising that America recorded below-average crime in the most recent sweep of the survey.
Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England and Wales, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Scotland and Sweden -- among the developed nations -- all registered a higher prevalence of crime than the United States. The figures are based around a composite of 11 crimes, including such things as bicycle theft (a major problem in the Netherlands), but the relative position generally holds for other crimes like auto theft, burglary and assault.
It's again noticeable that the non-American "Anglosphere" countries suffer from high rates of assault and robbery. In both Britain and Australia, more than 6 percent of the population reported being the victim of a personal assault or threatened assault within the last year, double the American rate; 5 percent of Canadians gave the same response.
Nevertheless, high assault and robbery rates are not an English-speaking phenomenon. For example, 4 percent of French and Swedish respondents were victims of assault, and the French robbery rate was equal to the Australian and English, at just over 1 percent of the population (the U.S. figure was 0.6 percent).
As for property crime, a difference between the "Anglosphere" countries and the rest of the developed world once again seems visible. For burglaries and thefts, Britain and Australia once more lead the way, along with Poland, with the United States taking a middle position before France, Belgium, the Netherlands and similar countries.
When compared with the rest of the developed world, America's non-murder crime rate appears strikingly good. Americans suffer crime far less than residents of most European states and significantly less than other English-speaking peoples do. That goes for all types of crime, property and violence.
America's reputation as a country overrun by crime might have been deserved in 1989, but now it's a misconception. The United States is quite simply one of the safest places to live in the developed world.[This post is based in large part on a series of articles writtem for United Press International]
I have to say on my visits to America (LA, Washington, San Francisco, Vegas etc) I have always felt safe. Never once have I felt worried for my well being. I wish I could say the smae for London, or indeed the part of it, (Chingford) that I come from.
Indeed, staying with friends or mine in San Francisco and LA, I was amazed that they never locked thier front doors and had never been robbed.
This is something we could never do in London
Posted by: Andy Hemsted | November 09, 2007 at 08:32 PM
I would be interested to find out if city centres in the US suffer similar levels of alcohol-fuelled crime that have made many UK towns squalid and intimidating places during evenings.
Posted by: Andy | November 09, 2007 at 08:35 PM
Very interesting article. In response to Andy, I am currently studying in Pittsburgh and have to say that going out on a Friday and Saturday night one feels completely safe. The police are visible yet people seem to far better behaved than they are back home. Another aspect of this is the fact that there is still a sense of community spirit outside of the major cities and it certainly helps to explain why crime in America surburbia is very low.
Posted by: Paul | November 09, 2007 at 08:52 PM
Maybe I'm affected by the nature of our MSM always focusing on crime and negative attributes of our society but I'm a little surprised by the comments of Andy Hemsted and Paul. I may be presumptive but I think some of those cities would be thought of as kinda dangerous by many Americans. LA and Washington in particular are often portrayed as having serious crime. I suppose its relative to the rest of the country. I haven't been to either.
After witnessing so much anti-Americanism reading comments like from the above posters is what really makes this site worth the effort.
Posted by: Steevo | November 09, 2007 at 09:24 PM
A few things shocked me on arriving in Britain.
1. Drunk "lads" and "ladettes" in the town square on a friday evening. (I thought the British were all prim and proper and well behaved).
2. The large number of WHITE (and occasionally PINK) stretch limousines (Lincoln and HUMMER). They are ubiquitous. They look like something out of a "gangsta rap" video - they look totally out of place in "the green and pleasant land". They are used for weddings, parties, hen nights and proms (yes, the British now have proms).
(Imagine a stretch hummer in front of St. Judes in Leeds - it doesn't look right!)
3. Crime. Heard some really nasty crimes on TV. I also came in contact with quite a few people who have been mugged.
America isn't that bad.
Posted by: Maduka | November 09, 2007 at 09:27 PM
I too am amazed that some people in large cities don't lock their doors per Andy Hemsted's comment. That behavior is more prevalent in small towns and rural areas.
I live in a small city (pop. 10,000 or so) in western Washington state where there is very low crime. Here we can leave our doors unlocked, the mailman can leave a package on your doorstep, and you can leave your keys in the ignition of your unlocked car in the driveway with no incident. An occasional burglary of a vacant (vacation) home might occur, but rarely do we have home robberies. It might have something to do with the fact that many homeowners here are armed. However, at night, I wouldn't walk around unarmed - and not because of a fear of assault by a person - but because of the possibility of bumping into a bear or a cougar or pack of coyotes...
Posted by: atheling | November 09, 2007 at 10:08 PM
Good article - I think non-Americans do mistake the USA's high murder rate for a high general crime rate. The high murder rate is a cultural phenomenon that applies across all ethnicities, not just black and Hispanic (incidentally, a point on the demographics you mention - the Hispanic violent crime rate is around 3.3 times the non-Hispanic white rate, or roughly half the black rate). I've long had the impression that there is less of a cultural taboo on killing in the USA than in other Western countries - of course there is still a strong taboo against killing, but it seems to be seen as less of an 'ultimate transgression'.
Posted by: Simon Newman | November 09, 2007 at 10:51 PM
Atheling, what town are you residing. I'm in Vancouver, on the border with Portland.
Posted by: Steevo | November 09, 2007 at 11:53 PM
Steevo,
I'm on the Olympic Peninsula...
Posted by: atheling | November 10, 2007 at 02:06 AM
Following on about the comments od the drunken English lads and ladettes, I have to admit I have never seen this behaviour in America either. I am sure it must happen, but no where near as much as in the UK.
In Britain we do have a very real problem, and every year it does seem to be getting worse. Young people are getting worse in their behaviour, and the government seems powerless (or lacks the will) to act.
This is another reason why I am working on moving to the States. Not only am I sick of not feeling safe on my streets, but am sick of being asked to pay more tax for a government that keeps on taking away my basic rights etc
Posted by: Andy Hemsted | November 10, 2007 at 10:53 AM
The 'drunken yob' of many a British town on a friday night is an interesting cultural phenomenon, especially when compared to the U.S. I studied in Charleston, SC last year and found American young 'uns to be no less boozy than our own lads and laddettes (or indeed, myself); with the difference that they rarely if ever would resort to the kind of behaviour that comes as second nature to a generation of teens/chavs in this country - loud swearing in public, throwing up in gutters, throwing rubbish bins around the street, etc, etc. The almost total absence of low level thuggery was a pleasure to behold.
I speculated that one reason for this may have been the more noticable presence of the police around and about town of an evening. Drunk Americans are no different from drunk Britains, but I'd hypothesise that what keeps the former in check is a criminal justice system (at least in South Carolina) that isn't afraid to tackle the kind of low level disorder that it is just too much hassle for British coppers (thanks to PACE 1984) to even bother to think about dealing with. If people think there is a realistic chance that they will be imprisoned or given hard labour for a drunken assault, then even the most inebriated can -sometimes - control themselves. Common sense really.
Again, I am totally uninformed about police procedure and regulations in South Carolina, or any other U.S. jurisdiction. They me be just as snow-bound with red-tape as our own police force (or 'service' as Sir Ian Blair likes to call it) and just as reluctant to enforce public civility, though my own observations and personal experience lead me to believe otherwise. Comments on this would be informative.
Posted by: James | November 10, 2007 at 12:57 PM
"a homicide might be listed as a murder before there is any investigation as to whether it was justifiable or excusable"
Note that in the US, a homicide is a homicide, whether justifiable or not. We calculate our stats by the victims, whether someone has been charged or convicted or not.
As others have pointed out, we here have "war zones" in larger cities where most crime occurs. Crime is extremely low in the rest of the country. Even cities have large low crime areas, as others have said. I live in the mountains in central Pennsylvania, in a college town with a population of around 39,000. Murders and violent crimes here are front-page news, and are pretty rare -- and most of the crime that does occur here happens on or near campus when the 40,000 students are here. We're more worried about bears in the back yard or hitting deer on the roads than we are being assaulted.
There is one other point that rarely gets mentioned. Americans are, as a group, less tolerant of crime and criminals than most European nations, and perhaps the other nations of the Anglosphere. Drive through town at 3 am, and you will see that the car is sitting at the red light waiting for it to turn green, even though there is nobody else on the road. We not only still have the death penalty, but after the SCOTUS ruled that only juries could hand down the death penalty, several studies have shown that juries are more likely to hand down a death sentence than judges. We have our share of hand-wringing "he was abused as a child!" liberals, of course, but your average American believes strongly that people who commit violent crimes should be locked up.
Posted by: rightwingprof | November 10, 2007 at 01:17 PM
"Americans are, as a group, less tolerant of crime and criminals than most European nations..."
That is certainly reflected in the international sphere. Look at the present situation with Iran. Americans can be certain that we will have little or no support from Europe regarding Ahmadinejad and his nuclear ambitions. Indeed, we will see Europe thwart any attempt to rein him in.
Posted by: atheling | November 10, 2007 at 04:53 PM
"Again, I am totally uninformed about police procedure and regulations in South Carolina, or any other U.S. jurisdiction. They me be just as snow-bound with red-tape as our own police force (or 'service' as Sir Ian Blair likes to call it) and just as reluctant to enforce public civility, though my own observations and personal experience lead me to believe otherwise. Comments on this would be informative."
James our police have quite a bit of authority to enforce. If you even resist an officer's 'request' that may just be enough to get the opportunity to have your due process and stand before a judge to make your case.
You're very observant, and your bottom line is true... a drunk is a drunk :)
Posted by: Steevo | November 10, 2007 at 05:07 PM
Do they have public drunkenness laws in Britain? In many American cities and towns public drunkenness is enough to get you a night in the slammer.
Posted by: atheling | November 10, 2007 at 05:12 PM
Atheling, we do indeed have public drunkenness laws on the books in the UK but thanks to the obscene amount of regulation loaded on the police everytime they seek to charge a fellon the incentive is to give them a 'stern warning' or some such cop out (no pun intended). If you get loud and drunk you have to do something pretty bad to get arrested - eg, assault. One of the things I found surprising in the US was the number of guys my age who had been arrested by the police. I soon learned this wasn't because they were any worse bahaved than some of my friends and acquaintances in the old country, but more due to the police having a much lower tolerance of bad public behaviour.
Posted by: James | November 10, 2007 at 07:00 PM
your average American believes strongly that people who commit violent crimes should be locked up.
I think the average Brit feels the same way, unfortunately the politicians/ judges don't always take the same view...
Posted by: Jonathan Powell | November 11, 2007 at 12:29 PM
Is this article accurate???
-----------
26 June 2007 23:12
UK Government figures 'missing' two million violent crimes
By David Barrett, PA Home Affairs Correspondent
Published: 26 June 2007
An extra two million violent crimes a year are committed in Britain than previously thought because of a bizarre distortion in the Government's flagship crime figures, it was claimed yesterday.
A former Home Office research expert said that across all types of crime, three million offences a year are excluded from the British Crime Survey (BCS).
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2710596.ece
Posted by: Frogg, USA | November 11, 2007 at 08:28 PM
Summary from another source:
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Using the United States as a point of reference, we arrive at the following conclusions:
Burglary – Widely believed as the gravest of property crimes, burglary is lower in US today than in the 80s. As of 2000, US has lower rates than Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, Finland, and Wales. It has higher rates than Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Spain.
Homicide – US had been consistently high in homicide rates than most of the Western countries from 1980 – 2000. Though the rate was cut almost in half in the 90s, it is still higher than all nations without political and social turmoil with the 2000 rate of 5.5 homicides per 100,000 people.
Countries entrenched in turmoil like Colombia and South Africa, had 63 homicides per 100,000 and 51, respectively.
Rape – In the 80s and 90s, US rates were higher than most of the Western countries, but by 2000, Canada is leading. Rape reports are lower in Asia and the Middle East.
Robbery – The past 2 decades saw a steady decline in the US. Countries with more reported robberies than US include England, Wales, Portugal, and Spain. Those with fewer are France, Germany, and Italy, and Asian countries plus the Middle East.
In overall crimes (the total of all mentioned crimes), US ranks the highest, followed by Germany, United Kingdom, France, and South Africa.
-- Cathie Madsen, Dec 2006.
http://www.nationmaster.com/article/Crime-Rates-Around-the-World
--------------------------------------------
For the past two decades crime rates in the US have been on the decline, while it has been on the increase in much of Europe. However, the past two years have shown an increase in crime rates in the US (still much lower than two decades ago). I hope this is not a new trend.
It's nice to see an article put a little perspective on US crime. The misconceptions are sometimes ridiculous.
Posted by: Frogg, USA | November 11, 2007 at 08:57 PM
I live in a small city in Iowa (60,000 people) where we recently had a murder. It was major news because things like this happen so rarely. We do lock our doors, I suppose primarily because my wife and I moved here from the East Coast not too long ago and there it was necessary (Philadelphia area). Here I can be on the streets in most parts of town, on foot, at any hour of the day or night in perfect safety. It may be pretty deserted, but there will be no danger to my person. This is the common description of most of small town America, which is most of the country after you leave the two coasts.
Posted by: Dr.D | November 11, 2007 at 11:18 PM
Yes interesting - that's perspective. Thanks
Posted by: Steevo | November 11, 2007 at 11:19 PM
"your average American believes strongly that people who commit violent crimes should be locked up."
It isn't the violent crimes that are the problem. America has the highest incarceration rate in the world with 702 inmates per 100,000 residents behind bars.
Among black males 25 to 29, 12.9 percent were in prison or jail. Overall, 4.8 percent of black males were in prison or jails, compared to 1.7 percent of Hispanics and 0.6 percent of whites.
Black women in prisons and jails continue to outnumber their white (5 times as many) and Hispanic (more than twice as many) counterparts.
Drug offenses account for nearly 60 percent of the federal prison population and more than 20 percent of the state inmate population.
( http://norml.com/index.cfm?Group_ID=6334 )
The problem is once in prison there is no effort placed on rehabilitation and the rate of reoffending is astronomical.
Posted by: Steven | November 12, 2007 at 01:24 PM
"highest incarceration rate in the world"
Obviously, the incarceration rate isn't high enough, or we wouldn't have criminals on the streets. The reason we have a high incarceration rate is because, as I said, we don't tolerate criminals. And blacks are underrepresented in prison. See here:
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/prison.htm
Do the crime, do the time.
Posted by: rightwingprof | November 12, 2007 at 03:13 PM
"we don't tolerate criminals"
Neither does Europe. The crime rate in Europe is more or less the same as in America. To be fair, crime rates are very low in both places. Only Europe doesn't need to lock up 1% of its population to keep crime levels down. Europe doesn't need draconian punishments to deter petty criminals. Fact: There is more criminal energy and propensity for violence in American society.
Posted by: Camsa | November 12, 2007 at 07:12 PM
Camsa
I notice the implied superiority in your tone:
"Only Europe doesn't need to lock up 1% of its population to keep crime levels down. Europe doesn't need draconian punishments to deter petty criminals"
Are you somehow saying that Europeans are superior moral beings to Yanks? If so get off your self-righteous high horse.
You say that European and American crime rates are nigh on equal and in the same breath you state that Americans have more "criminal energy" (whatever that is) and propensity for violence, utterly contradicting yourself.
You are just plain ignorant. Go back to the drawing board.
Posted by: Andy | November 12, 2007 at 09:52 PM