national murder rates worldwide

[Gifted]

I had the pleasure of finding this response to an inquiry:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/worldmaking/53117.html?thread=163197#t163197

I've done a bit of looking, and found this site:
http://thegreenman.net.au/mt/archives/000055.html

Problem is, while helpful, the different years used gets me, and I don't want to use it as a source while biting back. Does anyone know of a source I can use without it coming to bite me in the butt?

 

[DelayedReaction]

Estonia has the third highest murder rate? Wow.

 

[Gifted]

Well, the biggest problem with thegreenman is his use of different years for the stats. It doesn't lead to enough consistancy for me to feel comfortable using it.

 

[rms/pa]

sorry deep cynic mode here,

posted statistics on murder rates are almost useless . depending on the local and national culture, there are endless rationalizations for not reporting a death as a murder.
more than one "needed killin" death in my home area became an "acidental fall" ,"hunting accident".and one "accidental drownding" on the coroners report. thats just in the tricounty area here in PA
with fairly good reporting methods.
to try to draw meaningful statistical relationships one would have to account for the accuracy of the statistics analyzed.

good luck

rms/pa

 

[orionengnr]

well, I just posted my ?????ty reply

and got some backup immediately by a mad kiwi.
Thank God there are some right-thinkers everywhere.
Thanks for the fun!

 

[ceetee]

In agreement with rms/pa here. One of the greatest things about the internet is the ability to get news, information, and entertainment from anywhere in the world. Everyone should make a habit of searching out English-speaking radio stations that offer streaming broadcasts. I've made a habit of listening to Highveldt Stereo, Johannesburg, South Africa mostly for a wider variety of music than they play here in South Florida. It's easy to see how differing cultures value things differently.

One interesting news item was when these two squatters got on a knife-fight over something. The radio news announcer made a huge deal about how the loser was thrown down a 5-meter-deep hole, this being in the wintertime, where he suffered from hypothermia, frostbite, and almost died from exposure, They played a sound clip from some Constable who also made a big deal about the hole, the temperature, the exposure, ad nauseum, making only one brief reference to the fact that the poor guy had also been castrated before being thrown down the hole.

I guess being castrated is so common over there that it's not even newsworthy, but being thrown down a hole... Now there's news!

 

[daniel (australia)]

This link graphs murder rates by country, based on the Seventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, covering the period 1998 - 2000.

 

[larryw]

"Total recorded intentional homicides, completed. Crime statistics are often better indicators of prevalence of law enforcement and willingness to report crime, than actual prevalence. Per capita figures expressed per 1000 population."

 

[daniel (australia)]

Yes, all such comparisons must be treated with caution. Here's a rather more comprehensive explanation of the reasons for such caution, from the UNODC notes to the 7th Crime Survey.

"In selected cases, most notably homicide, country to country comparisons are safer, although may still be subject to the drawbacks outlined above" (ibid.)

 

[larryw]

"It should be noted that the crime statistics reported to the United Nations in the context of its various surveys on crime levels and criminal justice trends are incidents of victimization that have been reported to the authorities in any given country. That means that this data is subject to the same problems of accuracy as all official crime data."

For example, isn't it true that a crime isn't reported as a "crime" in the UK until there is an actual conviction? In the mean time, it is an administrative issue?

 

[daniel (australia)]

The UN notes I linked point out the sources of some degree of uncertainty, due to reporting differences, which particularly affect categories such as rape/sexual assault, less so homicide. No data set is perfect.

In relation to the UK figures I have heard that claim made too, but if you go in to the raw data the number of homicides, the number of prosecutions and the number of convictions for homicide are each reported separately.