After reading this article:  At Least 15 People Were Shot In Chicago Last Night which makes the killing rates in the US sound monstrous, I got interested in how it compares to the UK, as a benchmark. What follows is a load of information and data, some very limited analysis as the data really speaks for itself... and then myself stumbling onto a terrible blight in a very unexpected country.

Relative Size and Populations of US and UK

Populations:
·          US: 313.9 million (2012)
·          UK: 63.23 million (2012)
This is a ratio of almost exactly 5:1

Quotes from Media and Stats from Wikipedia

In the US
·          Breaking it down further, three people are killed by a gun per hour and almost seven people are shot every 60 minutes.
·          The FBI's "crime clock" indicates that a violent crime occurs every 25.3 seconds.
In the UK
·          2,051,000 violent crimes per year in the UK = 1 every 15 seconds
o    Normalise by population ratio, if the UK were the size of the US this would be 1 every 3 second
o    Mitigating circumstances:
§   UK is far more dense than the US
§   UK has far more cities than the US for it's size
§   UK has banned firearms, which has the effect of increasing non-lethal violent crimes, but means the overall homicide rate is far lower (explained in more detail later).
·          540 homicides were recorded for 2011/12 – this is the lowest since 1989 and down 15% on 2010/11. Homicide covers murder, manslaughter and infanticide.
o    This is one homicide per 16.2 hours (16 hours 13 minutes and 20 seconds).
o    Normalise by population ratio, if the UK were the size of the US this would be 1 every 3 hours 14 minutes and 20 seconds.
o    Even with the mitigating circumstances, this is clearly far lower than the US homicide rate, as the US statistics quotes above were only for firearms related homicides.
o    This is clear to me that making firearms generally illegal is one of the best things this country has going for it.

Data according to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

·          Homicide Rates:
o    US:  4.7 per 100,000 inhabitants
o    UK:  1.2 per 100,000 inhabitants
§   (As reference, Jamaica has 40.9 per 100,000, Hong Kong 0.2, Iceland 0.3 and Japan 0.4)
§   Honduras has 96 per 100,000 (highest)
§   Middle East: Egypt 1.2, Iraq 2.0, Afghanistan 2.4, Libya 2.9
·          This is very unreflective of the crisis in these countries as the figures do not include war or military related deaths, or (obviously) unreported deaths which are rife in the current climate.
§   Monaco: 0.0 per 100,000
·          Intentional death rates
o    Adding the suicide rate from the World Health Organization to homicide rate from the UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Study
o    Greenland has the highest, with a homicide rate of 19.2 per 100,000 inhabitants but a suicide rate of 108.1 per 100,000 inhabitants giving a total intentional death rate of 127.3 per 100,000 inhabitants.
§   This suicide rate is enormous.
§   For reference Jamaica has one of the lowest suicide rates (0.1), China, South Korea, Japan and 4 Eastern Block Countries have very high Suicide Rates, as does Belgium, strangely.

Greenland
·          Huge suicide rate, description:
o    “NUUK, Greenland—The posters are plastered on school walls and at bus stops across Greenland's capital city. The message, aimed at teenagers, is a direct plea to use a special hot line: "The call is free. No one is alone. Don't be alone with your dark thoughts. Call.”
o    “If you know anything about Greenland, you know that it is the world's largest island. You know that it is the least densely populated country on the planet.”
o    "Every young person in Greenland knows someone who has committed suicide," Bodil Karlshøj Poulsen, director of Paarisa, the country's public-health center, told me. "It's a new phenomenon."
o    1 in 4 or 1 in 5 people have attempted suicide.
·          Why?
o    Greenland is suffering from a psychological epidemic that frankly nobody understands completely
o    Alot of the suicides actually occur in the summer months, not as the result of dark, cold and isolation in the winter.
§   the perpetual sunlight and lack of night time house absolutely mashes up the brain's circadian rhythms and serotonin release mechanisms
o    Alcoholism is a huge problem and hasn’t been controlled in other countries with similar diurnal patterns like Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway)

As I said, the data pretty much speaks for itself - but in conclusion:


  • Shut up NRA ("More guns will mean less violent crime")
  • Don't go to Honduras, El Salvador or Columbia without a bodyguard
  • Greenland needs to sort out it's boozing and play some more team sports.