Although the murder rate nationwide has decreased by over 50% between 1991 and 2010, about a year ago, New Orleans, St.Louis, Baltimore, Detroit and Newark had homicide rates that ranged from 49 to 32 per 100 000 of population. The most murderous places on Earth, South Africa, Central and South America have average rates that range from 21 to 32. To be fair, if we compare cities with cities, then they are on a par with the violent city of Johannesburg.
Interestingly the latter has also experienced a similar decline in violence in almost the same time span, and it currently has a homicide rate of 37 per 100 000. Overall, the United States with an overall rate of 4.8 is far safer than its most violent cities and less volatile than most countries in the Americas. But with half of Russia's murder rate, it still leads most of Europe, the Middle East, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and China.
Since I live in Canada, which is so similar to the United States, I often wonder why, north of the border, we are only one third as likely to be homicide victims. For those who entertain the silly notion that American violence spawns from its blood-filled movies and television, we basically watch the same stuff, and our National Hockey League, despite moments of athletic brilliance, can get as barbaric as the National Football League. Most of our currency also has small traces of cocaine on it, and our organized crime leaders have intimate links with those in America.
If you examine homicide rates in American cities with populations above 250 000, you will notice that although they comprise only 18% of the nation's population, they account for 38% of its murders. But in Canada, the average murder rate in urban centers(1.49 per 100 000) is actually lower than it is for smaller municipalities(1.80)!
Is our lower rate linked to tougher gun laws? Unlikely. As pointed out by a non-National Rifle Association-sponsored Review of International Evidence, many Western European countries have high rates of gun ownership yet low murder rates. In Canada, there is a black market for all sorts of assault rifles, so the deranged can still get their hands on them, and we have had cases of infanticide where gunless murderers pushed vehicles and their victims into bodies of water.
And why has the homicide declined so dramatically in recent decades in the United States and Canada? There are genetic roots to aggression in our species, but the gene pool hasn't changed much in this short period. The city of New York attributes the decline to increased police presence, but similar drops were experienced by cities that did not significantly step up efforts to fight crime.
This is speculation on my part, but here is how I account for the decline in violence:
1. The surge in personal computer use has:
(a) kept much of our youth off the streets by giving them ways to interact online and by providing an outlet for aggression through video games.
(b) given criminals a chance to switch from blue to white collar crime: identity theft and online gambling, to name a few.
2. When violence was peaking in the 1960's and 1970's there had been dramatic increase in urbanization, a surge in broken families and more unsupervised free time on the part of children. In later decades, divorce rates not only stabilized, but a larger percentage of youth had attended day cares and day camps, which strongly discourage aggression.
In Steven Pinker's book, The Blank Slate, he attributes the decline in violence to demographics. He claims that the boomers were mostly in their youth when the homicide rate peaked.
SOURCES:
FBI Crime Statistics
Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? Review of International Evidence
United Nations Global Study On Homicide
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_03.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/090816-cocaine-money.html
Interestingly the latter has also experienced a similar decline in violence in almost the same time span, and it currently has a homicide rate of 37 per 100 000. Overall, the United States with an overall rate of 4.8 is far safer than its most violent cities and less volatile than most countries in the Americas. But with half of Russia's murder rate, it still leads most of Europe, the Middle East, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and China.
Since I live in Canada, which is so similar to the United States, I often wonder why, north of the border, we are only one third as likely to be homicide victims. For those who entertain the silly notion that American violence spawns from its blood-filled movies and television, we basically watch the same stuff, and our National Hockey League, despite moments of athletic brilliance, can get as barbaric as the National Football League. Most of our currency also has small traces of cocaine on it, and our organized crime leaders have intimate links with those in America.
If you examine homicide rates in American cities with populations above 250 000, you will notice that although they comprise only 18% of the nation's population, they account for 38% of its murders. But in Canada, the average murder rate in urban centers(1.49 per 100 000) is actually lower than it is for smaller municipalities(1.80)!
Is our lower rate linked to tougher gun laws? Unlikely. As pointed out by a non-National Rifle Association-sponsored Review of International Evidence, many Western European countries have high rates of gun ownership yet low murder rates. In Canada, there is a black market for all sorts of assault rifles, so the deranged can still get their hands on them, and we have had cases of infanticide where gunless murderers pushed vehicles and their victims into bodies of water.
And why has the homicide declined so dramatically in recent decades in the United States and Canada? There are genetic roots to aggression in our species, but the gene pool hasn't changed much in this short period. The city of New York attributes the decline to increased police presence, but similar drops were experienced by cities that did not significantly step up efforts to fight crime.
This is speculation on my part, but here is how I account for the decline in violence:
1. The surge in personal computer use has:
(a) kept much of our youth off the streets by giving them ways to interact online and by providing an outlet for aggression through video games.
(b) given criminals a chance to switch from blue to white collar crime: identity theft and online gambling, to name a few.
2. When violence was peaking in the 1960's and 1970's there had been dramatic increase in urbanization, a surge in broken families and more unsupervised free time on the part of children. In later decades, divorce rates not only stabilized, but a larger percentage of youth had attended day cares and day camps, which strongly discourage aggression.
In Steven Pinker's book, The Blank Slate, he attributes the decline in violence to demographics. He claims that the boomers were mostly in their youth when the homicide rate peaked.
SOURCES:
FBI Crime Statistics
Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? Review of International Evidence
United Nations Global Study On Homicide
| http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/misperceptions/index.html |
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_03.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/090816-cocaine-money.html
