Man shot three times in street by racist gunman - for wearing Barack Obama T-shirt

[Heracles 417]

DC scares me

Lets not even mention Prince Georges county..

I won't go to DC unless I have you as my protection

hehehe

The first time I went to Prince Georges county I thought I was in some 80's film. Even with the burning of stuff in barrels.. Talk about ghetto..

I am sure there will be another killing or two on the news from there tonight..

[Amby 490]

I lived in safe Bethesda so I'm not gangster enough for DC

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The UK is small, violent crime is relatively rare - all the statistics prove that.

Compared to the US though?

The UK numbers make Washington, D.C. look good.

On the east side of the Atlantic, we have the <a href="http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/crimeew0506.html" target="_blank">British Home Office and the British Crime

Survey for 2005/2006</a>. If we look at the tables supporting Chapter 5, on Violent Crime,

(this is an Excel Workbook) we are told that there was a total of 2,420,000 violent crimes

in the time-frame covered by the report. If we take the word of the CIA Factbook, the UK

had a population of 60,609,153 (July 2006 est.) This gives a rate of violent crime per

100,000 inhabitants as 3992.8. However in Chapter 7 (Table 7a) of the BCS, the total

violent crime rate per 1000 inhabitants is listed as 23, which is equivalent to 2,300

per 100,000 inhabitants. Even this lower number is an astonishing figure when

compared to the US data.

On the west side of the Atlantic we have the <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html" target="_blank">Federal Bureau of Investigation and the

Uniform Crime Report for 2005</a>. (2005 is the last year for which the data are not

preliminary.) In table 1, we see that in 2005, the violent crime rate per 100,000

inhabitants was 469.2.

Some of the state-by-state numbers:

State: Violent Crime Rate per 100,000 / Murder rate per 100,000

South Dakota: 175.7 / 2.3

California: 526.3 / 6.9

New York: 445.8 / 4.5

Massachusetts: 456.9 / 2.7

Wisconsin: 241.5 / 3.5

Illinois: 551 / 6.0

District of Columbia: 1459.0 35.4

Crime in the UK versus Crime in the US

The patterns of crime are different though - the UK may well have more assaults per capita than the US (as I said it depends very much on the sort of area you live in - outside of the inner cities, I suspect the picture is very different (it is in LA for example, where towns that are literally side-by-side have wildly different crime rates), but I very much doubt the UK compares in terms of gun crime, for example.

[Amby 490]

When I lived in the UK we were walking back from the vid store and a guy just walked up to us and punched Neil in the face for no reason. #######?

[mawilson 2,133]

The patterns of crime are different though - the UK may well have more assaults per capita than the US (as I said it depends very much on the sort of area you live in - outside of the inner cities, I suspect the picture is very different (it is in LA for example, where towns that are literally side-by-side have wildly different crime rates), but I very much doubt the UK compares in terms of gun crime, for example.

Does it really matter whether you get shot or stabbed? Violent crime is violent crime, and statistically there's more violent crime in the UK.

Doesn't the US crime rate also depend on the sort of area you live in? It's a specious argument.

Still, if you want to compare apples and apples, take a look at this comparison of New York and London:

• New York has a population of 8 million, London - 7 million
• London's crime rate is about 7 times that of New York
• Police budgets are comparable
• New York has 40% more cops on the beat

[Heracles 417]

The patterns of crime are different though - the UK may well have more assaults per capita than the US (as I said it depends very much on the sort of area you live in - outside of the inner cities, I suspect the picture is very different (it is in LA for example, where towns that are literally side-by-side have wildly different crime rates), but I very much doubt the UK compares in terms of gun crime, for example.

The UK must have better "education".

When I lived in the UK we were walking back from the vid store and a guy just walked up to us and punched Neil in the face for no reason. #######?

Probably mistook him for six..

[Heracles 417]

The patterns of crime are different though - the UK may well have more assaults per capita than the US (as I said it depends very much on the sort of area you live in - outside of the inner cities, I suspect the picture is very different (it is in LA for example, where towns that are literally side-by-side have wildly different crime rates), but I very much doubt the UK compares in terms of gun crime, for example.

Does it really matter whether you get shot or stabbed? Violent crime is violent crime, and statistically there's more violent crime in the UK.

Doesn't the US crime rate also depend on the sort of area you live in? It's a specious argument.

Still, if you want to compare apples and apples, take a look at this comparison of New York and London:

• New York has a population of 8 million, London - 7 million
• London's crime rate is about 7 times that of New York
• Police budgets are comparable
• New York has 40% more cops on the beat

London must not have figured out the "cause and effect" yet, true maviwaro. The people of London must need more "education" right six. Apparently this is the solution to crime.

Six take note of the above info. Now think of the resources (welfare / schools) available to people there in comparison to people in the US.

Edited October 9, 2008 by Aficionado

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Does it really matter whether you get shot or stabbed? Violent crime is violent crime, and statistically there's more violent crime in the UK.

Well sure - a (possible) trip to A&E after a drunken brawl is obviously preferable to a pine box after being shot.

Doesn't the US crime rate also depend on the sort of area you live in?

Of course. Most of the crime in NYC isn't in Manhattan - its in the other boroughs like Brooklyn and The Bronx. If you don't hang out in those areas you're not likely to encounter a problem.

The patterns of crime are different though - the UK may well have more assaults per capita than the US (as I said it depends very much on the sort of area you live in - outside of the inner cities, I suspect the picture is very different (it is in LA for example, where towns that are literally side-by-side have wildly different crime rates), but I very much doubt the UK compares in terms of gun crime, for example.

Does it really matter whether you get shot or stabbed? Violent crime is violent crime, and statistically there's more violent crime in the UK.

Doesn't the US crime rate also depend on the sort of area you live in? It's a specious argument.

Still, if you want to compare apples and apples, take a look at this comparison of New York and London:

• New York has a population of 8 million, London - 7 million
• London's crime rate is about 7 times that of New York
• Police budgets are comparable
• New York has 40% more cops on the beat

London must not have figured out the "cause and effect" yet, true maviwaro. The people of London must need more "education" right six. Apparently this is the solution to crime.

Six take note of the above info. Now think of the resources (welfare / schools) available to people there in comparison to people in the US.

Why is it you think I believe that "education" is the sole solution to urban crime?

I've never said anything of the kind.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

When I lived in the UK we were walking back from the vid store and a guy just walked up to us and punched Neil in the face for no reason. #######?

Probably mistook him for six..

Wow - I must seriously wind you up.

Perhaps a "chill pill" is in order...

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

[Amby 490]

awwwww I you two. you give me so much entertainment.

[Peikko 1,575]

Maybe one should read the date one posts. Interersting that for example:

49% of violent crime in the UK does not result in any injury to the vitcim. Imagine that?

Or this:

84% of violent crimes were, offences against the person, the least serious grouping.

Or this:

There were 765 homicides, a decrease of 12 per cent, and included 52 victims of the July London bombings

[mawilson 2,133]

Maybe one should read the date one posts. Interersting that for example:

49% of violent crime in the UK does not result in any injury to the vitcim. Imagine that?

And the US equivalent?

84% of violent crimes were, offences against the person, the least serious grouping.

Huh? English?

There were 765 homicides, a decrease of 12 per cent, and included 52 victims of the July London bombings

A decrease of 12% compared to what? A year ago? A decade ago?

Look at the US numbers I posted - you will see a 40% decrease since 1995. So what?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I think "Against the person" offenses amount to shoves or light slaps. Sort of thing that Christian Bale was accused of doing to his mother and sister.

I think it also mentions in there somewhere that gun crime accounts for 1% of all violent crime in the UK>

Edited October 10, 2008 by Paul Daniels

[Peikko 1,575]

Figures were from one of the other links, for 2006. That is somewhat the point though, apart from homicide, violent crime is not well defined, but if violent crime statistics for the UK (the ones I looked at) contain statistics for violent crimes in which the victim doesn't sustain injury and in fact that is half the crimes, then one has to suspec that violent crime is rather a broad brush.

If one simply sticks to homicide, less than 770 in a population of 60,000,000 is pretty small.

Again, the report said that 84% of the violent crimes reported were in the least serious category - ok, I didn't have time to research what that was but with the almost 50% resulting in no injury, I would suggest that these include threats of violence (probably pub brawl drunk type incidents which sound about right for the UK) rather than actual violent robbery etc.

However, feel free to debunk it, but it fits my experiences.