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Is the US homicide rate high only because of big cities?

Larry Cipriani said: Well, if we nuke New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and Detroit the crime rates in the US will be incredibly low, lower than that of just about every other nation on earth. Not so. I have...

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Tim Lambert Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.

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« Comparing Australia with the US | Main | Fewer homicides after gun control introduced in NSW »

Is the US homicide rate high only because of big cities?

Category: international
Posted on: November 27, 1991 2:41 PM, by Tim Lambert

Larry Cipriani said:

Well, if we nuke New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and Detroit the crime rates in the US will be incredibly low, lower than that of just about every other nation on earth.

Not so. I have grouped together Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC. (1998 figures)

        Pop Homicid Robbery Motor Vehicle  Theft
Big US Cities   17.7M   25.2    938 1587
Rest of US  228.1M  7.1 165 505
US Total    245.8M  8.4 221 583

For comparison, here is Australia, (grouping Sydney and Melbourne)

Syd+Mel     6.6M    2.0 85  1116
Rest of OZ  10.2M   2.0 30  544
OZ total    16.8M   2.0 52  770

and some other countries

Canada          2.0 94  344
New Zealand     2.6 41  999
England & Wales     1.2 62  728
West Germany        4.1 47  114
(West German homicide rate includes attempts)

US violent crime rates are far higher than other countries, even excluding large cities.

What does that say about those cities ? They are crime ridden cesspools is what. They also have some of the strongest gun control laws in the US.

Which suggests that high crime rates cause gun control laws.

European gov'ts are now allowing [or are they back to disallowing] immigration into their countries from poorer nations. We'll see how long it takes for those crime rates to match ours.

Are you suggesting that it is immigrants that cause all those those crimes?

Australia has had a higher (per-capita) immigration rate than the US for many years.

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