# Need stats on crime: UK vs US **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 2, 2004, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089 "2004-05-02T02:51:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/1 "2004-05-02T02:51:02Z")
Help, dopers! My father in law today made the rather surprising assertion that because guns are banned in the UK, the entire nation is now a hotbed of lawlessness, with a rate of crime higher than that in the US. He cites one of his NRA publications. It took a bit for my jaw to get up off the floor, and I was left with the witty rejoinder “um, I don’t, uh, think that’s true”. Then I took him to prison. But the guards made me take him back out again. I’ve not had time to research stats on my own (what with entertaining the in-laws and finding the presents their dogs leave on our floor). So I beseech you, can someone provide me with the straight dope? They leave tomorrow, 4PM central, so anything before then would be nice. And if sources of data such as the “International Liberal and Pinko’s union for the overthrow of the NRA, goodness, niceness, and God Association” could be avoided, that would be helpful too. ---
**Author:** ![Omphaloskeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bcef8e/32.png) [@Omphaloskeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omphaloskeptic)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/2 "2004-05-02T04:19:32Z")
Believe it or not, there seems to be some truth to it (at least to the statistics; whether guns are a major factor, and even in which direction they ought to correlate, is arguable as always). It depends on what you’re comparing, though. It’s well-known that the US has (and, apparently, has always had) exceptionally high murder rates relative to other Western democracies (everyone has his own opinion as to why); but in rates of other crimes it’s not so exceptional. And since murders are rare (relative to other crimes) if you consider total crime rates the (relatively) high murder rate doesn’t change the overall rate much. Two quick cites: - [Zimring study (just a summary) - study compared burglary and robbery rates in NYC vs. London](http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/97legacy/zimring.html) (at the IL&P union, Berkeley chapter) - [UN International Crime Victims Survey, 2000](http://www.minjust.nl:8080/b_organ/wodc/reports/ob187i.htm) (IL&P, NYC East River chapter); especially look at [Chapter 2 (PDF)](http://www.minjust.nl:8080/b_organ/wodc/publications/08-icvs-h2.pdf) It’s always difficult to do comparisons like this because of differences in reporting rates, etc., and the UK has changed its crime statistics quite a bit lately, so there may be some issues there. But the graphs in the ICVS Ch.2 are pretty surprising even if you take the UK out of the picture. Here’s the table of overall victimisation rates (per 100 people; Ch.2, Table 6, p. 38) and “selected contact crime” (apparently robbery+aggravated assault+sexual assault) rates (percentage victimised; Ch. 2, Table 5, p. 33) for 1999: ```auto overall contact Australia 58 4.1 England & Wales 58 3.6 Netherlands 51 2.0 Sweden 46 2.2 Scotland 43 3.4 USA 43 1.9 Canada 42 3.4 Poland 42 2.8 Denmark 37 2.3 Belgium 37 1.8 France 36 2.2 Finland 31 3.2 Catalonia (Spain) 30 1.5 Portugal 27 1.4 Switzerland 24 2.1 Northern Ireland 24 2.4 Japan 22 0.4 ``` ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/3 "2004-05-02T04:32:20Z")
Your FIL is smarter and/or better informed than you might think. [BBC article specifically addressing the issue you are arguing about](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2656875.stm) ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/4 "2004-05-02T04:48:18Z")
Debated at great length in this thread > **[Has the UK gun ban improved the situation any?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=251139)** > > Has it? Was the disadvatnage to legitimate sportsmen worth the ban? Is it any harder for a criminal to come across a firearm? Data presented there show “crime rates” and “violent crime rates” roughly equal between the United States and Great Britain, while the United States murder rate is more than twice as high. In that thread, you will also find a link to the Barclay report, organized by the British government, that looked at crime rates in Britain and the rest of Europe from 1995 to 1999. (The gun ban was passed in 1995.) Relevant results: Total crime went down by 21 percent in Ireland and 10 percent in Britain, compared to 1 percent in Europe overall. Violent crime up by 20 percent in Britain compared to 11 percent in the rest of Europe. Britain still had murder rates well below the average for the rest of Europe. Britain is lower than the European average on burglary, car theft, drug crimes, and several other categories. As you can probably guess, most pro-gun sources focus on the violent crime statistics while ignoring the others. Most also nelgect to metion that the definition of what constitutes violent crime for the British measures has changed substantially. For instance, as we discussed in a thread that’s eluding my searches at the moment, grabbing a cell phone from someone’s hand is now a violent crime; formerly it wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/5 "2004-05-02T05:03:46Z")
The Barclay report linked to in that thread only covers the years 95-99. For two more years of data, go here: > **[hosb1203.pdf](https://www.csdp.org/research/hosb1203.pdf)** > > 326.35 KB The bottom line is that between '99 and '01, crimes rates continued falling while violent crime rates continued rising, though in both cases not by very much. As of 2001 England still has a murder rate less than one third that of the United States. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/6 "2004-05-02T05:51:01Z")
Sorry to keep butting in like this, but [this graph](http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page54.asp) and [this one](http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page63.asp) are just too damn great to pass up. I think those will be my new favorite cites for gun control threads. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/7 "2004-05-02T10:26:06Z")
Another point about the methods of recording crime in England and Wales: Until recently, if (for example) a dozen cars on a street were all vandalised at the same time, it would be recorded as a single crime. Now, it’s recorded as 12 separate crimes, the reasoning being that there’s 12 separate victims. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/8 "2004-05-02T10:39:11Z")
Quick googling suggest that the NRA are indeed disingenuous in their discussion of overseas crime. [http://www.nraila.org/NewSite/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=78](http://www.nraila.org/NewSite/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=78) > [@](#): > > …An English doctor is suspected of murdering more than 200 people, many times the number killed in the gun-related crimes used to justify the most recent restrictions. What the hell does a lone psychopath have to do with gun control? > [@](#): > > "A June 2000 CBS News report proclaimed Great Britain `one of the most violent urban societies in the Western world.’ It’s also one of the most poverty-stricken, most drug-addicted, most segregated and with least movement of people between social classes. Again, nothing to do with guns. > [@](#): > > Street crime increased 47% between 1999 and 2000 (John Steele, “Crime on streets of London doubles,” London Daily Telegraph, Feb. 29, 2000. …True, but this was while mobile phone ownership was also rising fast, and a quarter of London ‘muggings’ were actually schoolkids stealing phones from each other. Since then, it’s become much harder to reuse stolen mobile phones, and street crime is falling again. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/9 "2004-05-02T16:54:50Z")
Fascinating! As usual, it seems that each side tends to cherry-pick the statistics that serve their agenda, and present them more than a bit out of context. But at least I have some (relatively) hard data, and can now say “well yes, they may have a point looking at it _this_ way, but when looked at _that_ way, I wonder how significant it is”. Thanks so much!! ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/10 "2004-05-02T18:57:36Z")
What I want to know is where I can join the International Liberal and Pinko’s Union for the Overthrow of the NRA, Goodness, Niceness, and God. Do you have any pamphlets, **Qadgop**? ---
**Author:** ![Omphaloskeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bcef8e/32.png) [@Omphaloskeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omphaloskeptic)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/11 "2004-05-02T19:38:59Z")
**ITR champion** , looking at those two graphs I agree – something good happened in 1995. But it looks like it was basically undoing something bad that happened in 1991: there’s a big jump in 1991, rising to a peak in 1995, then dropping _back to the original trend_ by about 1999. Any idea what caused that? Also, in the [Barclay report](http://www.csdp.org/research/hosb1203.pdf) you link to, the tables seem to disagree with your assertion that > [@](#): > > “crime rates” and “violent crime rates” [are] roughly equal between the United States and Great Britain Annoyingly, most of the data in that report is given as raw numbers, not per capita statistics, but Table 2 (crime victimisation rates) has this (reordered to put England and USA next to each other for comparison): ```auto overall contact auto theft burglary **England & Wales 26 3.6 2.6 5.2** **U.S.A 21 1.9 0.5 3.8** Northern Ireland 15 2.4 1.5 2.5 Scotland 23 3.4 1.0 3.2 Belgium 21 1.8 0.8 4.1 Denmark 23 2.3 1.4 4.2 Finland 19 3.2 0.5 1.2 France 21 2.2 1.9 2.3 Netherlands 25 2 0.5 3.6 Poland 23 2.8 1.7 3.1 Portugal 15 1.4 1.2 2.5 Spain 19 1.5 0.5 1.9 Sweden 25 2.2 1.6 2.3 Switzerland 18 2.1 0.4 2.7 Australia 30 4.1 2.1 6.6 Canada 24 3.4 1.6 4.4 Japan 15 0.4 0.1 1.8 ``` England is higher in all categories; in “contact” crimes (the Barclay report’s selection of violent crimes) England is nearly twice as high. Auto theft is five times as high. Victimisation rates are not quite the same as crime rates (multiple crimes against a single person in a year are counted only once), so I made a spreadsheet to figure out the per capita crime rates for violent crime and burglary, using population figures estimated from the homicide data. (The report does give per capita values for homicide but not for the other crime categories.) Here are the results, for selected countries (others removed for lack of data): ```auto Homicides Violent crime Burglary (per 100000, 1999-2001) **England & Wales 1.61 1445 819** **U.S.A. 5.56 506 739** Northern Ireland 2.65 1547 496 Scotland 2.16 535 647 Denmark 1.02 291 622 Finland 2.86 644 174 France 1.73 419 334 Germany 1.15 228 172 Netherlands 1.51 584 576 Norway 0.95 447 254 Poland 2.05 219 194 Portugal 1.17 194 207 Russia 22.05 66 245 Spain 1.12 310 582 Switzerland 1.12 116 891 Australia 1.87 959 1439 Canada 1.77 975 584 Japan 1.05 48 226 New Zealand 2.50 1157 1073 ``` As I said in my first response, while homicides much more common (about 3.5 times as many, per capita) in the USA than in England, the homicide statistic seems to be the exception. In the broader “violent crime” category (much more common than homicide) England has about 3x the rate of the US, and it’s slightly higher in burglary. England also has much higher rates of car theft, the other category shown in the report (not listed here because I got tired of cut-n-paste). Sorry if you think I’m cherry-picking, **QtM**. I’m using the best data I know about. Cross-country comparisons are pretty difficult to do well, as you can see from the number of footnotes in the original tables. And those are only trying to account for differences in categorisation across countries, never mind reporting differences; if you believe that Russia’s violent crime rate is as low as stated (safer than Switzerland!) I’ve a bridge in Vladivostok to sell you… ---
**Author:** ![Chotii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@Chotii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chotii)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/12 "2004-05-02T19:57:37Z")
> [@ITR champion](#): > > Sorry to keep butting in like this, but [this graph](http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page54.asp) and [this one](http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page63.asp) are just too damn great to pass up. I think those will be my new favorite cites for gun control threads. However, your second graph, which illustrates ‘violent crime’, specifically says this: “Note: Violent crime, as measured by the BCS, includes common assault, wounding, robbery and snatch theft. It does not include homicide (as the victims cannot be surveyed) and other types of violent crime, like firearms offences.” It seems to me that in light of the OP’s post, homicides and firearms offences would be too important to eliminate from the statistics. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/13 "2004-05-02T20:04:14Z")
**Omphaloskeptic** , my cherry-picking comment was directed at the spin the NRA put on the data, not your well-presented data! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/14 "2004-05-02T21:46:54Z")
> [@Chotii](#): > > However, your second graph, which illustrates ‘violent crime’, specifically says this: > > “Note: Violent crime, as measured by the BCS, includes common assault, wounding, robbery and snatch theft. It does not include homicide (as the victims cannot be surveyed) and other types of violent crime, like firearms offences.” > > It seems to me that in light of the OP’s post, homicides and firearms offences would be too important to eliminate from the statistics. Given that the number of violent crimes is shown as 2.8 million per year, and the number of homicides is about 1,000, then they can be eliminated as statistically irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/15 "2004-05-02T21:50:50Z")
> [@ITR champion](#): > > The gun ban was passed in 1995. 1997, actually. Dunblane wasn’t until 1996. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/16 "2004-05-02T21:57:20Z")
> [@Omphaloskeptic](#): > > **ITR champion** , looking at those two graphs I agree – something good happened in 1995. But it looks like it was basically undoing something bad that happened in 1991: there’s a big jump in 1991, rising to a peak in 1995, then dropping _back to the original trend_ by about 1999. Any idea what caused that? Whatever happened in 1995, it was not the handgun ban as that was in 1997. Looking at the graphs with that knowledge suggests that the handgun ban was irrelevant, which is not surprising as it removed only 160,000 weapons (or about 8% of the total legally-owned guns) in the UK. ---
**Author:** ![Omphaloskeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bcef8e/32.png) [@Omphaloskeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omphaloskeptic)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/17 "2004-05-02T23:26:53Z")
> [@amarone](#): > > Whatever happened in 1995, it was not the handgun ban as that was in 1997. Looking at the graphs with that knowledge suggests that the handgun ban was irrelevant, which is not surprising as it removed only 160,000 weapons (or about 8% of the total legally-owned guns) in the UK. Hmmm, good point. OK, now I’m curious about what happened in 1991 **and** 1995 in England. Anyone have any ideas what caused this short-lived spike? Did the yobs really dislike John Major (PM 1990-1997 though, so unless they got used to him that doesn’t work)…? Did the dissolution of the USSR have a big effect in England? Does anyone know of any good explanations for this? ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/18 "2004-05-02T23:35:43Z")
The early nineties were a time of (relative) economic hardship. Crime rates rise when the economy falters, and vice versa. This isn’t an ideological statements, merely a reflection of what statistical trends show… The 80s saw comparative stability (the '87 crash disproportionately affecting the wealthier classes), and likewise the late 90s onwards. ---
**Author:** ![Omphaloskeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bcef8e/32.png) [@Omphaloskeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omphaloskeptic)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2004, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/19 "2004-05-03T16:42:24Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > The early nineties were a time of (relative) economic hardship. Crime rates rise when the economy falters, and vice versa. This isn’t an ideological statements, merely a reflection of what statistical trends show… The 80s saw comparative stability (the '87 crash disproportionately affecting the wealthier classes), and likewise the late 90s onwards. OK, I might be able to believe this. I found a graph of UK unemployment rates over the same time period as the graphs, and has a vaguely-similar bump in the middle. The crime rate movements seem to lag the unemployment rate changes by at least a couple of years, though, which seems odd to me. Also the unemployment graph was not nearly as flat outside the 1990s as the crime-rate graphs. I’m also surprised at how large the changes were–the violent crime rate rose 65%!–but it still seems like a reasonable explanation for at least part of the behavior. ---
**Author:** ![Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rex_fenestrarum/32/7265_2.png) [@Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Fenestrarum)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2004, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089/20 "2004-05-03T18:59:47Z")
When I was in London in February, all the talk in the newspapers was about creating a “British FBI” to deal with the high crime rates there. Not only that, they’re bringing in the people from New York that implemented Guliani’s “broken windows” policy in NYC - which most everyone (with exceptions) agrees was pretty darn successful. Anyway, what struck me was the the UK papers - both left and right - were lamenting the fact that even though the US has the reputation as being a gun-toting, lawless society, rates for almost every crime except murder were _higher_ in the UK than in the US. I knew, for example, that “you are now six times more likely to be mugged in London than New York” (BBC link, above) but if you’re gonna get _shot_ while getting mugged, it’ll be in the US, not the UK. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-stats-on-crime-uk-vs-us/243089.md?page=2)