Murder-rates, that is, intentional murder, are in the news
at least every couple of weeks. So, where are all these murders occurring? We look at world murder-rates data, all of
which is online. Where is the USA, and
where are the largest murder rates? Are
murder rates connected with gun ownership, or with corruption? Questions like these seem to have obvious
answers, both yes.
The results tell a different story. First here is a table of countries with the
highest murder rates. The rates given below are per 100,000 people per
year.
Rank
|
Country
|
Rate
|
Count
|
ZONE
|
|
1
|
El Salvador
|
108.64
|
6,656
|
Americas
|
Central America
|
2
|
Honduras
|
63.75
|
5,148
|
Americas
|
Central America
|
3
|
Venezuela
|
57.15
|
17,778
|
Americas
|
South America
|
4
|
United States Virgin
Islands
|
52.64
|
56
|
Americas
|
Caribbean
|
5
|
Jamaica
|
43.21
|
1,207
|
Americas
|
Caribbean
|
6
|
Lesotho
|
38.00
|
764
|
Africa
|
Southern Africa
|
7
|
Belize
|
34.40
|
121
|
Americas
|
Central America
|
8
|
South Africa
|
34.27
|
18,673
|
Africa
|
Southern Africa
|
9
|
Saint Kitts and Nevis
|
33.55
|
18
|
Americas
|
Caribbean
|
10
|
Guatemala
|
31.21
|
4,998
|
Americas
|
Central America
|
11
|
Trinidad and Tobago
|
30.88
|
420
|
Americas
|
Caribbean
|
12
|
Bahamas
|
29.81
|
111
|
Americas
|
Caribbean
|
13
|
Anguilla (UK)
|
27.66
|
4
|
Americas
|
Caribbean
|
14
|
Brazil
|
26.74
|
55,574
|
Americas
|
South America
|
15
|
Colombia
|
26.50
|
12,782
|
Americas
|
South America
|
As is evident El Salvador has the highest murder rate by
far. The Americas are most represented, though Africa is well represented. In fact, overall, Southern Africa, as a group,
has the highest murder-rates. The murder
rate is the USA is 4.88, well below the halfway mark of all countries. This makes the USA relatively safe, except
maybe Chicago, which accounts for about 4-5% of all murders in the US.
We ask if there is a correlation with gang activity, and while
this may be so, gang population data is difficult to obtain by
country. A research question for some PhD thesis for sure.
The countries with the lowest murder rates are located in Europe,
though not eastern Europe. The rates are
in the 1-2 murders per 100,000 people.
Canada is also very low, but Mexico has nearly four times the murder-rate
as the US. Australia and New Zealand are also very low, in the European range.
In the interest of keeping this note short we now pose the
question of correlation with the prevalence of guns. Here the USA is tops, by a lot. The highest rates of gun ownership (per 100
people) are given below.
Rank
|
Country
|
Guns per 100
|
1
|
United States
|
112.6
|
2
|
Serbia
|
58.2
|
3
|
Yemen
|
54.8
|
4
|
Cyprus
|
36.4
|
5
|
Saudi Arabia
|
35.0
|
6
|
Iraq
|
34.2
|
7
|
Finland
|
34.2
|
8
|
Uruguay
|
31.8
|
9
|
Sweden
|
31.6
|
10
|
Norway
|
31.3
|
11
|
France
|
31.2
|
12
|
Canada
|
30.8
|
13
|
Austria
|
30.4
|
14
|
Iceland
|
30.3
|
15
|
Germany
|
30.3
|
Some of the countries with the lowest murder rates have the
highest gun ownership. Consider Finland,
a really peaceful country. Lots of guns there. (Russia, on the other hand, with far less than half the population of the US has about the same total number of murders.) But the above table is just 15 of more than 170 countries for which we found data. It turns out that gun ownership has
essentially a zero correlation with
gun ownership. No connection statistically. This was my first
surprise.
Surely the murder-rate must be correlated with corruption. Seems like "yes" on this one. However, again, the correlation was
essentially zero, my second surprise. This implies no case can be made that corrupt
countries have higher murder rates or vice-versa. Corruption data comes from transparency-international.
Finally, we examined the wealth disparity of countries as compared with murder rates. Now we got something. The correlation there was about 4/10, implying at best a moderate relation. Loosely speaking, we can say murder-rates are higher when wealth distribution is more unequal, as measured by the GINI index. BTW, on this index, the USA is about in the middle of all countries. Haiti has about the highest wealth disparity, i.e. lots of poor with just a few holding all the wealth.
Well, maybe if we considered a correlation of the incarceration rate with the murder rate. Surely, the more murders the greater the incarceration? Here the correlation is a mere 0.26, meaning this correlation is even less than with disparity of wealth.
Finally, we examined the wealth disparity of countries as compared with murder rates. Now we got something. The correlation there was about 4/10, implying at best a moderate relation. Loosely speaking, we can say murder-rates are higher when wealth distribution is more unequal, as measured by the GINI index. BTW, on this index, the USA is about in the middle of all countries. Haiti has about the highest wealth disparity, i.e. lots of poor with just a few holding all the wealth.
Well, maybe if we considered a correlation of the incarceration rate with the murder rate. Surely, the more murders the greater the incarceration? Here the correlation is a mere 0.26, meaning this correlation is even less than with disparity of wealth.
The upshot here was a surprise. I surely would have thought the more guns the
more murders. This is on the news all
the time, but it is simply not so. I
could find no strong correlation of murder-rates with any particular factor.
A final note. Correlation
is different from causality!!! Confuse them not.
BTW, worldwide, there are about 390,000 intentional murders each year giving a murder-rate of about 5.34 per 100,000 people.
Note: if you wish to pursue this line of question, note there is a wide difference in the names given to the same country from source to source.
References (a few)
Note: if you wish to pursue this line of question, note there is a wide difference in the names given to the same country from source to source.
References (a few)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate |
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