I have often heard that the murder rate in the ancient world, e.g. Rome, is estimated to be 30 times higher that what we currently have in the U.S. How does the present day compare with the 19th century? I would expect older cities like New York and San Francisco to have high rates due to the relative anonymity of city life combined with less sophisticated policing and crime detection techniques. When did we start gathering accurate data?
Thanks,
Rob
In general social science statistics from before 1930 often involve some extrapolation and guesswork. Manuel Eisner has assembled a long run US homicide time series from ~1700 to the present day. It follows a long term declining pattern.
More recently, homicide rates have generally declined since 1991: United States Crime Rates 1960 t0 2019
Kevin Drum thinks declining lead in the environment explains the latter.
Another book making an argument about this subject is this one:
You hav to wonder, too, in the days before autopsies how much murder - especially domestic violence - went unreported? The guy on some farm would report “my wife got sick and died, she’s buried out in the side lawn beside grandpa and grandma.” A week later, who’s going to contradict him? Who could tell shaken baby from crib death or childhood sickness?
I thought Genesis 4 was widely held to be accurate.
I haven’t read it myself, but I’ve come across references to Lawrence Stone’s Interpersonal Violence in English Society 1300-1980 a couple of times.
Here, you’ll find a few books and articles listed, all dealing with interpersonal violence in early modern Europe.
I realize this is probably not super-duper-helpful, since I haven’t read the books and articles myself, and therefore can’t provice a summary, but perhaps it’s a step in the right direciton…
Of course. 25% of all people were murder victims. And 25% were murderers.