Crime Rates: U.S. v. England

by StinkyPantz 117 Replies latest social current

  • Simon
    Simon
    I am so tired of being hated for being an American. I am human too.
    Simon said: "The problem is not that people bash America, but people are eager to take almost any comment as bashing - there is a big difference."

    Simon, then why do you take every opportunity to do so? One thread here or there is one thing, but you have been posting about your dislike of our country for months now. It seems as if you enjoy it and if you notice, the American posters didn't start threads about the UK unitl they finally got tired of it. The big difference here is that you live in the UK and can delete the post when you get tired of hearing it but we can not. If we wish to continue posting here, we have to just DEAL WITH IT, or be kicked off if we say something that you do not like. It happened just the other day with RubyTuesday. She only posted one thread that you didn't like and she was gone. Is that fair?

    WildHorses

    a. No one is hating youfor being American. The comments on this thread are just about statistics for gods sake.

    b. If you take comments about comparing statistics is bashing America then I cannot win and you will see America bashing wherever you look and want to see it. No wonder you think you are hated if this is the case. It's like some persecution complex.

    c. Where have I deleted topics about the UK? Don't accuse me of things that are not true.

    d. RubyTuesday was deleted for attacking me. I don't have to put up with that.

  • StinkyPantz
    StinkyPantz
    Show me some official figures.

    What in your eyes is official? I posted info. from the U.S. Department of Justice. Or are English sites the only thing considered "official"?

    Crime and Justice in the United States and in England and Wales, 1981-96

    Compares crime in the United States and England with respect to crime rates (as measured both by victimization surveys and police statistics), conviction rates, incarceration rates, and length of sentences. Crime rates as measured in victim surveys are all higher in England than the United States. Crime rates as measured in police statistics are higher in England for half of the measured crime types. A person committing serious crime in the United States is generally more likely than one in England to be caught, convicted, and incarcerated. Incarceration sentences are also generally longer in the United States than England.

    http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cjusew96.htm

    According to 1995 crime victim surveys, the --

    • English robbery victimization rate was 1.4 times the U.S. rate (7.6 per 1,000 population versus 5.3) (figure 1)
    • English assault victimization rate was 2.3 times the U.S. rate (20.0 versus 8.8) (figure 2)
    • English burglary victimization rate was 1.7 times the U.S. rate (82.9 per 1,000 households versus 47.5) (figure 3)
    • English motor vehicle theft victimization rate was 2.2 times the U.S. rate (23.6 versus 10.8) (figure 4).

    According to national surveys of crime victims, is the crime rate increasing or decreasing in each country?

  • U.S. crime rates as measured in victim surveys generally (robbery, assault, and motor vehicle theft) fell in the early 1980's, rose thereafter until around 1993, and then fell again (figures 1, 2, and 4). For survey estimated assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft, the latest U.S. rates (1996) are the lowest recorded in the 16-year period since 1981. By comparison, English crime rates as measured in victim surveys all rose. For robbery and assault, the latest English rates (1995) are the highest recorded since 1981 (figures 1-4).
  • StinkyPantz
    StinkyPantz

    The higher U.S. conviction rate for rape is attributable both to the higher U.S. police-recorded rape rate and to a United States criminal justice system that catches and convicts rapists at a higher rate than England's system. According to the most recent statistics on crime (1996) and the justice system (1994 in the United States, 1995 in England), the U.S. police-recorded rape rate is three times England's (figure 5), but the U.S. rape conviction rate is over eight times England's (.212 versus .025) (figure 20), indicating that a rape in the United States is more likely to lead to conviction than one in England.

    http://64.4.22.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=13a4b64fc95dfa9d72f555ab2eeb9f40&lat=1056010444&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2eojp%2eusdoj%2egov%2fbjs%2fpub%2fhtml%2fcjusew96%2fcpp%2ehtm

    So even if there are less rapes in England, the rapists aren't getting convicted nearly as often like they are here.

    -----

  • Abaddon
    Abaddon

    This table might be useful, I don;t know what the people compiling that first set of stats you were posting were on Stinky;

    If you use the Previous and Next links, you can get a lot of data.

    "Firearms are more often involved in violent crimes in the United States than in England. According to 1996 police statistics, firearms were used in 68% of U.S. murders but 7% of English murders, and 41% of U.S. robberies but 5% of English robberies. "

    This is a key bit. We have a higher rate of some theft-related crime. We have a higher rate of assault. But very few people get killed, about 5 or 6 times less.

    I would quite happily swap a high murder rate for a higher rate of non-lethal assault and or robbery. I suppose it doesn't matter what you're killed with (although the higher frequency of murder in the USA is very troubling for Americans) , but I take great comfort from the fact it is VERY unlikely if I ever am a victim of violent crime, that the person will have a gun; 8 times less likely. That in some small amount might explain the disproportionate murder rates; robberies go wrong, and with a gun, that's normally lethal.

  • Simon
    Simon

    Sorry if it is the official site ... it just looked so, well, amateurish !

    This link doesn't answer the questions but does highlight the difficulties of camparing statistics and just saynig "crime". Notice how different countries are worst or best depending on exactly what is being measured:

    http://www.iss.co.za/PUBS/CRIMEINDEX/01VOL5NO1/World.html

    Re: the US crime figures, some interesting points here:

    http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/transcrime/week3.htm

    Any Intro to CJ text discusses the two major types of statistics the United States produces regarding its crime rates. These include police counts (UCR is the best example) and victimization surveys (e.g., the National Crime Victimization Survey). A third type of measure, self-reported offender data (typically collected at schools by surveying students), is not systematically collected. Law enforcement counts are lowest; higher respectively are victim accounts and offender reports.

    See: Two Measures of Crime

    See Also: Where Does Crime Data Come From?

    An excellent review of the problems with U.S. police crime data was recently written by Michael Maltz. Among the topics he discussed include coverage gaps, incomplete crime data, incomplete arrest data, nonreporting agencies, inaccuracies produced by imputation procedures, and missing data.

    However, even if all of these data collection problems could be solved, the data set only covers crimes known to the police. As long as citizens do not report crimes (and there are a number of reasons why they do not), police measures will cover only a percentage of overall societal crime. One of the questions open for investigation in a course like this is the likely wide international variability in citizen willingness to report crime. For this reason, the U.S. surveys households to determine the extent of unreported crime.

    The quality of official crime reporting varies greatly from country to country. Major efforts by the United Nations have resulted in a movement toward common definitions of crime categories, and thus comparability.

    The UN comparative crime survey:

    http://www.unodc.org/unodc/crime_cicp_survey_seventh.html

    Per 100,000 capita

    USA

    UK

    Total Crimes

    8,517

    10,061

    Intentional Homicides

    4.55

    1.45

    Major Assaults

    329.63

    28.72

    I think this tells us that we (UK) have more crime (inc. property, road crime etc) but America has more violent crime

    Finally, if you think the BBC is biased:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_news/england/london/2923665.stm

  • searchfothetruth
    searchfothetruth

    When you consider that every speeding offense is classed as a crime in Britain, and that there are thousands of speed camera's on the roads (one thing invented in Holland that is NOT a good thing) then you can see why our crime figures overall look so bad.

    If you get clocked by a camera going 33 mph in a 30 mph area, that is considered a crime and is on the statistics as such, it doesn't diferentiate between a burglary and a speeding offence.

  • Simon
    Simon

    BTW: The UN crime information covers nearly all countries and has the crimes broken down into things like thefts, robberies etc ...

    It's an interesting read.

    I think claiming that the UK has 6x the crime rate of the USA is beyond far-fetched even for wearers of rose tinted spectacles.

  • WildHorses
    WildHorses
    I can't believe that the same old people with the same old chips on their shoulders are taking comments like this as America bashing YET AGAIN. This is sad and pathetic. It's almost like you have an agenda.

    Oh pa lease. Look in the mirror.

  • searchfothetruth
    searchfothetruth

    I think the title and the first post started out as a bit of Brit bashing, did it not, WildHorses?

    But the post discussed the matter until it was proven false and then all of a sudden its 'America bashing'.

    Not criticising you Stinky, it's an interesting thread.

  • WildHorses
    WildHorses

    SOT if you will read my earlie post. I explained WHY I posted the post that I did in here.

    Now, good bye everyone. Have a nice life.

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