I was looking at the crime panics in the UK and had a hunch that somehow people were not becoming more violent or criminal, so I picked homicide as a reasonable measure of violence that seemed like it might be more objective and less susceptible to manipulation by whatever side. (A dead body is a dead body, you can't "up-rate " it to a more serious crime).
For the UK I found the homicide rate to be static over the period of the surveys 1971-1996, at about 700pa (population did not move much from 55-60M). About 70% of these homicides are committed by an immediate family member or partner. (Despite public perception it looks fairly difficult to meet a violent end)
Oddly, many other "reported crime" rates increased enormously over this period. For example, Attempted Homicide seemed to triple over the time that there was no increase in the "achieved" homicide rate.
So either we are all trying to kill each other and have coincidentally become just as incompetent as we are murderous, or more likely to me it seems, all the other crime figures have become inflated by social factors, which are interesting to consider. There were quite a few other fun things in there as well. Mind if I ask you what your interest is?
Regards, Paul
-----Original Message----- From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com] On Behalf Of david dorkin Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 1999 7:23 PM To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Subject: International Homicide Rates
I was looking around for studies, data and comparisons of international homicide rates; anyone know of good online sources (I did find a good UN organization document but I dont remember where).
Thanks in advance