# Skewed US crime rates vs Europe

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-us-crime-rates-vs-europe/17875>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [March 29, 2000, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-us-crime-rates-vs-europe/17875 "2000-03-29T23:10:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![quadell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/b9bd4f/32.png) [@quadell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quadell)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2000, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-us-crime-rates-vs-europe/17875/21 "2000-04-04T05:54:00Z")

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Sentinel: Hoo-boy, you’re coming across pretty badly here.

> [@](#):
>
> You’ve not got listings from Africa, where the murder rate is far above any nation in the world.

Any nation? How about the 50+ nations in Africa? The way this is worded sounds like African countries aren’t “real”, which sounds suspiciously like something KM2 would say.

Yes, Africa has astronomic crime rates. And infant mortality rates, and starvation rates, etc. All of these follow poverty more closely than race, and Africa is the poorest continent. (Not counting Antarctica)

> [@](#):
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> Trying real hard not to sound racist, the high crime rate among Blacks in America is mainly Black on Black crime.

It’s more important to try not to **be** racist. Yes, black-on-black crime is very high, because people in poverty are more likely to be both the perpetrators and the victims of violent crime. If you look at the rate of poor-on-poor crime, regardless of race, it’s higher than the rate of black-on-black crime, regardless of income. (i.e. a poor white person is more likely to be the victim or perpetrator of a violent crime than a middle class black person.)

Your Quadell

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