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Edgar Suter's bogus claims

By tlambert on November 29, 1995.

You can check Suter's Graph 16 "International Homicide Rates
Comparisons" against the source he claims for this data (World Health
Statistics 1989). You will discover that the homicide rates for many
countries have been grossly overstated (for example, East Germany is
given as 36.7 (over three times the US rate) instead of 0.7 (less than
a tenth of the US rate). Other countries where Suter h greatly
exaggerated the homicide rate include El Salvador, Mexico, Egypt,
Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Scotland. He has also given very high
homicide rates for Zimbabwe and South Africa. These do not appear in
his reference at all.

Steve D. Fisher wrote:

What is Suter's source of homicide stats?

World Health Statistics 1989

What is your source?

World Health Statistics 1989. A couple of countries I had to get from
the 86, 88 or 90 edition.

For what year was the data presented?

88 for some countries, 89 for others.

Here's Suter's data and the correct figures from World Health
Statistics.

                               World
                               Health
                        Suter  Statistics 1989
El Salvador ........... 129.4  35.8 (1986)
Zimbabwe .............. 126.2  not given
Mexico ................  49.4  19.5
East Germany ..........  36.7   0.7 (1990)
Egypt .................  28.3   0.5 (1990)
South Africa (non-white) 26.8  not given
USA ...................  10.8   8.7
Ecuador ...............  10.0  10.0
Sweden ................   9.6   1.2
Northern Ireland ......   7.0   7.0
Finland ...............   6.4   2.7
USSR ..................   6.2   6.2
Denmark ...............   5.7   1.1
Scotland ..............   3.9   3.3
South Africa (white) ..   2.7  not given

Then there are 21 more countries with rates below 2.7 where Suter's
figures agree with his reference.

Tags
international

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