On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 7:23 PM, Owen Densmore <[email protected]> wrote:
> Oh my. I'm delighted to bow to the EU for having more violence than > ourselves. They also have a lot more ISL members. Odd. > > On the other hand, these stats are likely off, and besides, do they have > Zozobra? > > -- Owen > Yes, the stats are off. Here's a piece on (1) the source of the meme and (2) the difficulty of international comparisons: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jun/24/blog-posting/social-media-post-says-uk-has-far-higher-violent-c/ The reason for the wonky stats is the definition of violent crime. In US criminal stats, violent crime is defined *only* as one of four specific offenses (murder, non-negligent manslaughter, rape, aggravated assault). In Europe, the definition is more inclusive. For example in UK, it includes "simple assaults, all robberies, and all sexual offenses". So, yes, EU stats are higher but it's an apples-to-oranges comparison. If you look at homicide rates (easier to measure), the story is what you would expect: 5.0 reported/100k population in US, 1.1 reported/100 population in England & Wales (source: http://www.civitas.org.uk/crime/crime_stats_oecdjan2012.pdf)
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