CRIME
Comparisons of Crime in OECD Countries The UN affiliated European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control has recently published the most upto-date international comparison of crime statistics. The figures are based on the UN Survey of Crime Trends (UN-CTS). In the past the UN only published comparisons for Europe and North America, but the latest report uses police-recorded crime for 2006 for many additional countries. However, because there are significant problems of comparability, Civitas has selected only those nations that belong to the OECD. Its members are more likely to have reliable national statistics agencies and to be accustomed to standardising information. It is frustrating that international comparisons are so far behind, but ironing out inconsistencies to ensure that we really are comparing like with like simply takes a long time. We know from comparisons with other EU members that crime in England and Wales is very high. In 2004 the European Union's Crime and Safety Survey looked at 18 countries and found that the UK was a 'crime hotspot', along with Ireland, the Netherlands and Denmark. And in 2007 the Eurostat figures for the 27 EU members found that England and Wales had the third worst crime rate.
How does our crime rate compare? But how do England and Wales compare with developed countries inside and outside Europe? The UN comparisons are based on six of the most serious crimes: intentional homicide, rape, robbery, assault causing serious bodily harm, burglary and vehicle theft. Ranks out of 36 countries unless stated.
England
Scotland
Northern Ireland
Homicide
22nd
12th
18th
Rape
5th out of 34
11th
8th
Robbery
7th
23rd
13th
Assault (resulting in serious injury)
3rd
1st
28th
Burglary
7th
22nd
12th
Vehicle theft
14th out of 35
18th
20th
Compared with our peers, the report shows that we are a high-crime society with a particular propensity to violence short of intentional homicide.
© CIVITAS Institute for the Study of Civil Society 2010-12 http://www.civitas.org.uk/crime/comments.php
Author: Nick Cowen, 2010 Last update: Nigel Williams, 04/2012
CRIME Intentional Homicide Country Mexico Estonia United States Chile Turkey Korea Luxembourg Finland Israel Canada Belgium Scotland New Zealand Slovakia France Hungary Poland Northern Ireland Australia Ireland Portugal England and Wales Netherlands Greece Italy Sweden Czech Republic Denmark Spain Germany Switzerland Norway Slovenia Austria Japan Iceland
Police Recorded Cases per 100,000 population 18.1 5.2 5.0 3.7 3.3 2.9 2.5 2.3 2.1 1.8 1.7 1.6 1.5 1.5 1.4 1.4 1.3 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.1 1.1 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.5 0.5 0.3
CIVITAS Crime Briefing
2
Comparisons of Crime in OECD Countries
CRIME
Sources: UK Police recorded crimes for 2009/10, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Homicide Statistics, http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html
Rape
CIVITAS Crime Briefing
3
Comparisons of Crime in OECD Countries
CRIME
Country Australia Sweden New Zealand United States England and Wales Belgium Iceland Northern Ireland Norway Israel Scotland France Korea Chile Mexico Finland Luxembourg Austria Estonia Germany Netherlands Switzerland Ireland Italy Denmark Czech Republic Spain Poland Slovenia Portugal Slovakia Hungary Greece Turkey Canada Japan
Police Recorded Rape Cases per 100,000 Population 91.9 58.6 30.6 28.6 27.7 26.6 24.7 23.6 20.6 17.5 17.0 16.2 13.5 13.3 13.3 12.4 11.7 9.3 9.2 8.9 8.8 8.7 8.5 7.6 6.4 4.6 4.5 4.0 3.9 3.5 2.6 2.3 2.2 1.5 1.4 1.1
Sources: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Statistics on Crime, Sexual Violence http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/CTS12_Sexual_violence.xls
CIVITAS Crime Briefing
4
Comparisons of Crime in OECD Countries
CRIME Robbery Country Cases of Robbery per 100,000 Population Belgium 1762 Spain 1188 Mexico 607 Chile 456 Portugal 192 France 181 England and Wales 137 United States 133 Italy 108 Sweden 103 Canada 96 Netherlands 84 Northern Ireland 74 Denmark 73 Luxembourg 67 Switzerland 66 Germany 60 Ireland 56 Austria 55 Estonia 54 New Zealand 52 Poland 50 Scotland 48 Czech Republic 45 Greece 42 Israel 40 Norway 37 Hungary 32 Finland 31 Slovakia 25 Slovenia 24 Iceland 19 Australia 18 Korea 13 Turkey 11 Japan 4
CIVITAS Crime Briefing
5
Comparisons of Crime in OECD Countries
CRIME
Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Statistics on Crime, Robbery http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/CTS12_Robbery.xls
Assault
CIVITAS Crime Briefing
6
Comparisons of Crime in OECD Countries
CRIME
Country Scotland Sweden England and Wales Belgium Israel Germany Finland Chile Luxembourg Ireland Netherlands Iceland Australia Portugal France United States Mexico Turkey Denmark Spain Korea Canada Czech Republic Hungary Switzerland Italy Slovenia Northern Ireland Greece Norway Austria Slovakia Japan New Zealand Estonia Poland
Police Recorded Assault Cases per 100,000 Population 1487 927 730 718 641 630 615 576 476 353 352 346 327 312 310 262 218 218 191 177 172 170 162 124 117 110 108 90 69 64 48 48 44 23 8 2
The UNODC definition of assault requires that the offence resulted in serious bodily injury. Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Statistics on Crime, Assault http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/CTS12_Assault.xls
CIVITAS Crime Briefing
7
Comparisons of Crime in OECD Countries
CRIME Burglary Country Denmark New Zealand Austria Iceland Sweden Australia England and Wales Chile Belgium Switzerland Slovenia Northern Ireland United States Israel Canada Ireland Luxembourg Czech Republic France Norway Portugal Scotland Germany Netherlands Spain Greece Hungary Finland Poland Slovakia Italy Korea Turkey Mexico Japan Estonia
Police Recorded Cases per 100,000 population 1939 1386 1283 1117 1029 1017 986 965 891 843 746 717 715 611 611 610 573 525 513 490 463 458 456 428 420 416 377 359 354 282 190 169 161 156 117 40
CIVITAS Crime Briefing
8
Comparisons of Crime in OECD Countries
CRIME
Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Statistics on Crime, Burglary http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/CTS12_Burglary.xls
Vehicle Theft
CIVITAS Crime Briefing
9
Comparisons of Crime in OECD Countries
CRIME
Country
New Zealand Sweden Italy Israel Denmark France Canada Ireland Australia United States Norway Greece Finland England and Wales Portugal Belgium Mexico Scotland Spain Northern Ireland Iceland Czech Republic Netherlands Chile Switzerland Austria Germany Japan Hungary Luxembourg Estonia Slovakia Poland Slovenia Turkey
Police Recorded Vehicle Theft Cases per 100,000 population 466 433 384 362 338 333 321 298 272 258 249 236 228 215 211 205 181 179 171 164 151 141 138 121 121 111 106 85 80 71 70 69 45 29 25
Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Statistics on Crime,Motor Vehicle Theft http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/CTS12_Motor_vehicle_theft.xls
CIVITAS Crime Briefing
10
Comparisons of Crime in OECD Countries
CRIME Are we a punitive society? The report also allows us to test the theory that our system is especially punitive, a claim recently made by the Justice Secretary, Kenneth Clarke. The report calculates a 'punitivity ratio' by contrasting the number of people convicted in a year with the number of prisoners in jail as a result of a court sentence. (That is, the figure includes only prisoners sentenced to jail, not those on remand; and it includes prisoners sentenced in earlier years to long terms of imprisonment.) If a nation handed down prison sentences to a high proportion of those found guilty, or gave long sentences to those given custody, then it would have a high 'punitivity ratio'. However, the score for England and Wales, contrary to the claims of Kenneth Clarke, is low. The claim that our criminal-justice policies are punitive is not, therefore, supported by the best available evidence.
CIVITAS Crime Briefing
11
Comparisons of Crime in OECD Countries
CRIME
Country United States Mexico Japan Israel Chile Estonia Czech Republic Slovakia Norway Poland Austria Spain Korea Hungary Slovenia Portugal Scotland Italy Canada Germany Australia New Zealand France Switzerland Turkey Netherlands England and Wales Iceland Sweden Northern Ireland Denmark Finland
Punitivity Ratio 1.471 0.934 0.898 0.429 0.356 0.345 0.263 0.249 0.222 0.168 0.152 0.130 0.123 0.123 0.117 0.115 0.115 0.085 0.078 0.069 0.068 0.065 0.065 0.064 0.054 0.054 0.049 0.041 0.040 0.032 0.032 0.015
Sources Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Statistics on Crime, Persons Convicted, Persons Detained Following p143. Table 6. Harrendorf S, Heiskanen M, Malby S,International Statistics on Crime and Justice, European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, affiliated with the United Nations, Helsinki 2010.
CIVITAS Crime Briefing
12
Comparisons of Crime in OECD Countries
