[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Big Sarge

Hmm. It looks like Great Britain in 2010 had a 776 per 100,000 violent crime rate. During the same time, the US had a 403 per 100,000 violent crime rate. I guess our violent crime rate is less because criminals know we fight back.

I think that might be to do with how we record violent crime:



How the UK defines violent crime for the purposes of crime figures:

“Violent crime contains a wide range of offences, from minor assaults such as pushing and shoving that result in no physical harm through to serious incidents of wounding and murder. Around a half of violent incidents identified by both BCS and police statistics involve no injury to the victim.” (THOSB – CEW, page 17, paragraph 1.)

How the US defines violent crime for the purposes of crime figures:

In the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses which involve force or threat of force.” (FBI – CUS – Violent Crime)

The UK’s approach seems to be a lot more encompassing in scope and adds to its definition of “violent crime” offences which are not matched by its US counterpart. This raises the obvious question of whether UK violent crime rates can be said to be higher simply because things considered “violent crime” in the UK are not so in the US. One example is “assault”, all forms of which are considered “violent” in the UK, whereas in the US only “aggravated” is considered violent. A further example revolves around sexual offences, only “forcible” rape featuring in the US definition, while the UK definition includes rape and any and all forms of sexual assault.

There are also other factors to do with rates of reporting. This page breaks it down very well.

http://dispellingthemythukvsusguns.wordpress.com/


Having gone through the figures with a fine tooth comb, taking into account different reporting methods they conclude:

While it becomes clear that certain types of offenses are marginally higher in the UK than in the US (robbery and knife crime being more likely in the UK by an order of 1.1x and 1.27x respectively) a number of other, more serious offenses, are both marginally and substantially higher in the US. Rape of a female is 1.02x more likely in the US, while theft of a vehicle is 1.29x more likely. More disturbingly, burglary is significantly higher at 1.52x more likely to occur in the US. However, it is at the considerably more, well, violent crimes that America really supersedes England and Wales into its own class. In the United States, you are 6.9x more likely to be the victim of aggravated assault resulting in serious injury than in the UK. You are 4.03x more likely to be murdered than in the UK. And more staggeringly (though not surprising) you are 35.2x more likely to be shot dead in the Unites States than in the UK. Before anybody asks, no, these do not take into account justifiable homicide and other “acceptable shootings”, nor do murders for that matter:


“The UCR Program does not include the following situations in this offense classification: deaths caused by negligence, suicide, or accident; justifiable homicides; and attempts to murder or assaults to murder, which are scored as aggravated assaults.” (FBI – UCS – Violent Crime)