I love statistics, that’s why Nation Master website is one of my best friends. It gathers official statistics globally on wide range of topics, starting from agriculture all the way down to terrorism, and ranks country performance on neat little charts, try it out, but be warned you might end up spending hours there.
Last few days I’ve been looking at crime figures, and trying to see if my misconceptions of relative safety in different countries will be justified or proven to be false. I’ve selected 5 different countries for comparison, with no other reason but my personal interest. First up is UK, because I live here, next is Latvia, because I used to live there, next is US because its too big and important to be left out, next is Finland, representing the Nordics, ultimate democracy with perceived low crime rates, and finally its South Africa with somewhat violent image globally. So here you have it, that’s my interpretation of globally relevant comparisons. Data is from single source and calculated per capita, to allow for direct comparisons.
First I looked at serious crime figures such as murder and rape. Looking at murder rate (per 1000 people), South Africa confirms its notoriety, number two globally, only after Colombia. But what surprised me was UK performance, down in 46th place, proving that you are 2x less likely than in Finland and whopping 35x less likely than in South Africa to be a murder victim. Next up is rape, another vicious crime, here again SA leads although other countries are much closer. You are only 3x less likely to be a rape victim in US that in SA. On average you are 5x more likely to be a victim of rape than murder if that is any consolation.
So much for the crime, let’s look at the punishment. US is leading the world imprisoning their citizens, with over 2 million people currently behind bars in US, that is 0.7% of total population there or almost all the population of Latvia. Whilst in Finland you are least likely to get jailed, with only 0.07% of population behind bars. In terms of police force Latvia has the strongest presence although other countries are not far behind.
All in all UK is proving to be safer that US or even Finland, so good choice for me to move here. If you are looking for some adventure go to South Africa, but if you’ve been a bad boy and don’t like prisons, head to Finland. Over and out.
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