The data comes from the primary source. However, I used the secondary source to sanity check. For instance, the primary source reports that the murder rate in Burkina Faso is around 0.6. The secondary source reports it at over 18. Knowing what we do about Burkina Faso, it's likely that the primary source is not an accurate representation of the true murder rate. In total, three countries were removed due to inconsistencies between the two data sources (Burkina Faso, Indonesia, and Senegal).
Jumping off of that, Bhutan has pretty bad policies towards its ethnic minorities, especially Nepalis. You can read more about it here. Not saying Bhutan's completely terrible--it's still beautiful and a place I'd love to visit--it's just worth keeping in mind that it still has many of the same problems that other developing countries have.
(For those who don't know, in 1998 the Commander of the Swiss Guard and his wife were murdered. Since in 1998, the Vatican estimated population was about 660 then that would have made the murder rate for that year 303/100,000. Even averaging it over the period 1998-2019 that would still have made it 14/100,000. As @Djilas implies, that would have blown it completely off the list...)
How so? There are only two countries on the list that executed people in 2016, Japan and Singapore. The vast majority don't have 'harsh punishments' and so that would suggest that you don't need harsh punishments as a deterrent. If they worked then China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, USA etc. would all be topping this list?
USA doesn't follow through with most of their "harsh" punishments. Death penalty sentences in most states are not carried out. With our messed up legal system that is riddled with corrupt lawyers, it is easy to get a sentence reduced.
hirsute: Saudi Arabia has an extremely low crime rate, beating out places like Canada, Kuwait, and Belgium. As do other similar countries the UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar, which are the ones we're actually talking about. Try to focus. Part of the reason for this is that people in those countries are afraid. Everyone knows that there are harsh punishments, and police presence is felt almost everywhere. It's not the only reason but it's a big part of it. I've actually lived in these places before. Have you?
Saudi Arabia's crime rate is very very low but it's still a big country. It's not just about punishment but also policing. The other Gulf states that make the above list have even lower crime rates because they are smaller and easier to control. Iraq, Pakistan and Egypt are huge, populous countries that in many places are pretty lawless. It's downright silly to try and make a comparison between them and the smaller, more prosperous police states of the Gulf.
But if you were going to, Iran, Egypt, Kurdistan, Syria, and Kuwait all have much lower intentional homicide rates than places like Estonia, Martinique, Greenland or the United States.
You make some good points but I think it's really difficult to completely analyse why the crime rate is so low.
I believe the structure of the society in the Gulf states is probably relevant. Most violent crime is committed by people in poverty which I don't believe exists in the same capacity as in the west.
You have wealthy locals and well paid expats who are unlikely to commit such crimes and then the "lower classes" are all immigrants that have their basic needs taken care of, they send money home to their families, and they will immediately be deported if they so much as fart near a local. They're there to make money. I don't think the same can be said for a lot of lower class people in other countries.
USA in 2016 was 5.35. Higher than Pakistan, angola, Cuba and North Korea. I am glad to be living in the UK with a rate of 1.2. Nearly 5 times less likely to be murdered than in the USA! Australia 0.94 and Canada 1.68
@kal, this isn't true. Murders affect far more people than the one who was murdered. Not just family, friends, etc. but probably everyone in the surrounding area, and the difference will almost certainly be noticeable if you happen to be a police officer, someone involved in criminal justice, a forensic anthropologist, or a variety of other professions. The chances probably are that you will never be significantly and demonstrably affected by a higher murder rate. But the chances that you will be are far greater than winning the lottery (assuming you mean the jackpot, winning a small prize at some point is quite likely if you play enough).
I didn't say that they were exactly the same. I said similar. Very very small. AND... I was speaking to the difference in murder rate between the USA and the UK. (which, if you are not a drug dealer or in a gang in the United States, is actually all but non-existent).
I could split hairs even further and say I was not talking about any specific lottery (some drawings are not that contested and I didn't actually say the jackpot), but the point is that it's stupid to be happy that you're living in the UK vs the USA if the reason for that happiness is the difference in murder rates. This will not affect your life.
Looks like the Caribbean and Central and South America are the places to avoid if you don't want to be murdered. El Salvador 82.84 and in Brazil there were 61, 283 murders in one year! Puts the USA in the shade with it's paltry 17,250 murders
Out of interest, is there a significant difference between the Southern Cone and the rest of Latin America? Wouldn't be surprised if the most affluent part of Latin America was also the least homicide-y.
One wonders where Norway would be on this list, minus the actions of Anders Breivik. It's also interesting that the whole nordic noir movement has taken off in recent years, and is so popular internationally, and yet these countries have such low homicide rates. Coming soon to your TV screens, the Arab Gulf noir movement....or maybe not? Doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
The influx has been happening already for years, and yet they haven't affected the numbers. But go ahead and believe the xenophobic false propaganda some politicians and media are feeding you. >__>
Will you see more organized groups of men systematically grooming underage girls to be gang raped and then not prosecuted by police who fear that doing so would make them seem racist? Probably. But murder? Not so much. The murder rates in most Muslim countries are lower than that of Eastern Europe.
High level of gun ownership, high level of alcoholism, a culture of getting involved in everyone else's business other than your own (i.e. jealousy).. it all adds up to a few more murders here than you'd think.
I suspect you could find a correlation if there was any good data. But it is perfectly possible that there never can be good data because studies comparing nations where everyone is in a Western education system to ones where most people aren't educated are going to be biased somehow anyway.
The amount if Asian/middle east countries surprised me (admittedly I got none...) also missed Slovenia, and sort of didnt expect Spain to be on here though I got it.
I did some criminal justice work in Malawi, where people are held as "murderers" if they bear any responsibility (none at all, sometimes) for someone's death. One man I met was driving a moped with his friend on the back when his friend had an epileptic seizure, fell off the moped, hit his head, and died. The police did not dispute this. Yet he was still held as a murderer. The law also provides for manslaughter, but it's incumbent on the defendant to establish that, and most of these people are poor farmers who don't even understand the distinction. It was very sad to see.
You would be surprised about the level of crime and lawlessness in some of those microstates. Much of that is linked to a high degree of alcoholism prevalent in those countries. Added to their culture of male chauvinism, where being violent is often regarded as a symbol of male pride.
Kind of insane how a country of over 100 million people is only outdone by microcountries with less than 100k people, same with Japan going for one of the highest life expectancies. Really odd one that country
What? The murder rate of Japan is only 0.4%? That's impossible! Just a pupil detective from Beika, Tokyo could solve more than 1000 murders within half a year.
This puts the rate at pretty close to 3.1/100,000 for those 4 years. Averaging it out over 2000-2019 we should get an average rate of 0.63/100,000.
However that's not what we see. Instead, working backward from the 1.03 figure, that gives us a total number of 6 murders over that 19-year period.
It's possible that there were 2 other homicides that aren't turning up in my search results... or that the years 2002 & 2003 get "glossed over" (such as in this graph) and the rate of ~3 gets incorrectly applied to all 6 of those years. Hard to tell.
Rate = Murders * Polulation / 100,000
Rate = Murders * Polulation / 100,000
(For those who don't know, in 1998 the Commander of the Swiss Guard and his wife were murdered. Since in 1998, the Vatican estimated population was about 660 then that would have made the murder rate for that year 303/100,000. Even averaging it over the period 1998-2019 that would still have made it 14/100,000. As @Djilas implies, that would have blown it completely off the list...)
Saudi Arabia's crime rate is very very low but it's still a big country. It's not just about punishment but also policing. The other Gulf states that make the above list have even lower crime rates because they are smaller and easier to control. Iraq, Pakistan and Egypt are huge, populous countries that in many places are pretty lawless. It's downright silly to try and make a comparison between them and the smaller, more prosperous police states of the Gulf.
I believe the structure of the society in the Gulf states is probably relevant. Most violent crime is committed by people in poverty which I don't believe exists in the same capacity as in the west.
You have wealthy locals and well paid expats who are unlikely to commit such crimes and then the "lower classes" are all immigrants that have their basic needs taken care of, they send money home to their families, and they will immediately be deported if they so much as fart near a local. They're there to make money. I don't think the same can be said for a lot of lower class people in other countries.
I could split hairs even further and say I was not talking about any specific lottery (some drawings are not that contested and I didn't actually say the jackpot), but the point is that it's stupid to be happy that you're living in the UK vs the USA if the reason for that happiness is the difference in murder rates. This will not affect your life.
Fortunately, owning a weapon is very difficult
There was, so far as I can figure from Googling around, 1 murder in Monaco in each of 2001, 2004, 2005, and 2006.
This puts the rate at pretty close to 3.1/100,000 for those 4 years. Averaging it out over 2000-2019 we should get an average rate of 0.63/100,000.
However that's not what we see. Instead, working backward from the 1.03 figure, that gives us a total number of 6 murders over that 19-year period.
It's possible that there were 2 other homicides that aren't turning up in my search results... or that the years 2002 & 2003 get "glossed over" (such as in this graph) and the rate of ~3 gets incorrectly applied to all 6 of those years. Hard to tell.
Either way, again: the tyranny of small numbers.