Global homicide: murder rates around the world

Global homicide: murder rates around the world
Which countries have the highest murder rates? Find out with the latest data
Simon Rogers guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday 13 October 2009 08.00 BST

What do murder rates tell us about a country? When they are as extreme as Colombia's or South Africa's, do they shape our perceptions of the place?

Crime is rising in South Africa less than nine months before the country hosts the football World Cup. But even with a murder rate dropping some 3% in recent years, South Africa still has one of the higher rates in the world.

So, who are the others? These figures, from the fantastic UNdata give us an insight into the latest figures. But, of course, the results can offer different interpretations. If there's one area where you can find a figure to suit your prejudices this is it. The UN data includes figures from the World Health Organisation, the UN and local police forces. So there is the South Africa murder rate on the summary chart below of 39.5 - and there is also a hugely different WHO figure of 69 murders per 100,000.

So, how did we choose what to summarise here? Where there is a conflict, ie two sets of numbers for the same year, we've put them in this order: Average figures first, then Eurostat (the EU's statistics service) followed by the UN, WHO and then individual country reports. We've tried to be consistent in summarising the figures below - but if you want the full data, go to the Google spreadsheet and find out for yourself.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/oct/13/homicide-rates-country-murder-data

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tAJzrYuGxXOGbU_HO2s_PrQ

Murder rates around the world to 1999:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate_to_1999

From 2000-2008:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Guatemala looks bad too.

I guess Africa and Latin America share something in common: both have very high murder rates

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The key is to underdress, never use your cell phone in public, use an unmarked taxi provided by somebody you know, avoid fancy places, stay in at night, and carry something you can give them instead of your real wallet. In Kenya, I just carried a bar of Toblerone, a Playboy, and a bottle of scotch, and they seemed happy when they "stole" it from me. To me it was more of a donation to the poor.

In dangerous places like Guatemala and Venezuela, I carry two wallets, two cell phones, a cheap watch. One wallet goes in my socks, one in my back pocket, one cell phone in the other sock, the other in the shirt pocket. I also happen to be a very large ugly guy, so people tend to avoid me. I've even been to dangerous places in Caracas like Petare and El Limon, where I visited schools and orphanages, and never had any trouble.

in their high end neighborhood. It's a sad situation.

less for the burguesia.

(per 100,000 people).

Gun-happy Venezuela has a murder rate of 32.5. (That "dictator" Chavez should take their guns away!) (oh, can you just hear the squeals from the right!)

Brazil is nearly as high as Venezuela's, at 30.8. (Brazil, the "centrist miracle" in publications like The Econodust)

Honduras has a high-end average murder rate of 13.8. (But I'm sure the golpistas have "improved" their score since this data was gathered.)

El Salvador is rivaling Colombia, at 56.4. (--history of fascist death squads)

Guatemala has a high rate, 26.3 (--not surprising, since fascist death squads regularly off leftist political candidates--50 such murders in Guat. in the last election!)

Paraguay is high-ish, at 17.8 (--not sure why; they elected a leftist last year, after 61 years of rightwing rule, including a heinous dictatorship)

Peru is quite low, at 3.0 (--but the corrupt Alan Garcia just offed a bunch of indians protesting the rape of the Amazon; however, I don't know if they count indians there)

Bolivia, low-end, at 5.3 (--indians in charge for a couple of years now; but white separatists offed 15-30 indians in a coup attempt last year, so that stat may go up)

Mexico (10.9) is lower than Honduras (13.8) (--but the US "war on drugs" will probably "improve" Mexico's score to rival golpista bloodshed).

Cuba, Uruguay, Chile--like Bolivia, all low, similar to the USA--5.0 range.

Colombia is the worst; after that El Salvador. Next South Africa. Then Venezuela, Brazil, Russia and a couple of other countries like Jamaica, all in the 30.0 range.

The USA and Cuba have almost identical murder rates (Cuba, 6.0; USA, 5.9).

There seems to be little ideological connection, re right vs. left policy, on murder rates--except in a few places like Colombia (where the connection has been documented by Amnesty International and others)--much as the anti-Chavez crowd likes to imply that Venezuela's high murder rate is somehow attributable to "Chavez the dictator," socialism, the oil revenues going to education and health care for the poor, etc. The murder rate is twice as high in Colombia, where the government doesn't give a fuck for the poor and regularly kills poor people for union organizing or advocating for human rights. And USA and Cuba murder rates being the same (quite low - although not nearly as low as Scandinavia) strikes me as almost funny (if we weren't talking about murder). The Evil Empire and the Evil Communist Island both have good control over human homicidal activities within their borders. However, if you add in the number of people the US government itself has wantonly slaughtered over the last few years, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and by proxy in other other places (BILLIONS of US tax dollars in military aid to the two worst human rights abusers on earth--Colombia and Israel)--the USA murder rate is much, much higher than Cuba's, and outdistances every other country.

This study doesn't measure homicidal tendencies in government leaders, nor does it include unjust invasion and bombing of civilian populations in its definition of "murder."

and not recent statistics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

The numbers you're giving are an average of different periods. Venezuelan numbers stop in 2004 or 2005 (2002-2004/05) in the op's study.

Check the general evolution and trends for the last +/- 20 years in the links that I posted. You'll also see the different countries' evolutions from 2004 to 2008 (I know, Colombia is controversial).

If you want to talk about Chavez AND the former venezuelan governments, I do consider that it's a big necessity to disarm the citizens, as it would be in any other society. Don't you agree?

of murder as defined here.

"as the anti-Chavez crowd likes to imply that Venezuela's high murder rate is somehow attributable to "Chavez the dictator," socialism, the oil revenues going to education and health care for the poor, etc"

Yes, absolutely, the elementary non-chavistas say people get angry when they receive better education and health!
"LOL"

Actually what I have heard from simplistic people is that Chavez is responsible because of the militarization of society and the hate the rich speeches. I don't agree with that, for me it's foolish. I think the progression of criminality in Venezuela comes from the low salaries and the corruption of the police who sells weapons to anyone and commits a good part of the crimes, the deterioration of social conditions that started in the 80s and the lack of response from the governments for the last 20 - 25 years.