[rrpjr]

Well, let's straighten out any misunderstandings.


American vs. European Crime Rates

A German lawyer, in response to another blog entry (German Justice: 2 Days Per Murder), repeated the common European belief that the United States has a much higher crime rate than major European countries. The facts are quite different.

[UPDATE 8/15/2003 - For sources, see end of article]

Here are Interpol 2001 crime statistics (rate per 100,000):

4161 - US
7736 - Germany
6941 - France
9927 - England and Wales

Thus the US has a substantially lower crime rate than the major European countries.

Here are the Interpol 1995 crime statistics (rate per 100,000):


5278 - US
8179 - Germany
6316 - France
7206 - England & Wales

Hence the trend in the US is towards a lower crime rate, while the trend in Europe (except Germany) is towards an increasing crime rate.

It is true that the USA has a high murder rate, mostly of criminals killing criminals, but a distressingly large number of people killing their spouses in anger, and the rate of "stranger killings" is rising.

However, the homicide rates have been dropping dramatically as the US has been increasing penalties:

Homicide Rate/100,000 by Date in US:

1980 - 10.2
2000 - 5.5

Also, our murder rate is high largely due to the multicultural nature of US society. Inner city blacks, members of a distinct subculture, have a vastly higher criminal and victim homicide rate than our society as an average:

Homicide Offender Rate/100,000 by Race in US (2000):


3.4 - White
25.8 - Black
3.2 - Other

It is often hypothesized that blacks are overrepresented in murder statistics due to racism on the part of police and the justice system. If this were true, one would expect that the race of victims would have significantly different distribution than the race of the perpetrators, but this is not the case:

Homicide Victim Rate/100,000 by Race in US (2000):


3.3 - White
20.5 - Black
2.7 - Other

Thus if you remove homicides committed by blacks (total: 21862, Blacks:9316), and assume a proportionality between number of offenders and number of offenses, you can extrapolate US homicide offender rate of only 2.6/100,000, lower than Germany (3.27) and France (3.91).



In all fairness, this is not all related to gun control, and you correctly point out that the trends cited began prior to stricter gun control laws. However, you fail to point out the pre-existing stricter standard of gun control laws in Europe, and the possibility of a connection between this and a rising curve of crime.

Further, other factors have contributed to rising crime in Europe, including liberalized sentencing standards and poor relations among police and communities.

According to any analysis, Western Europe's criminal rate has surpassed the United States. The trends indicate the gap widening.




SOURCES:
International data come from these Interpol documents.

U.S. Data by Ethnicity comes from this Deparment of Justice document. Note that it has separate linked pages, and you need to go into it aways. Also you can get raw numbers by clicking on the graphs.