By Tom Kando A recent article (Sacramento Bee, August 23) shows that Venezuela has become one of the most dangerous places on earth. This grabbed my attention, if for no other reason than that my mother spent considerable time in that country.
In my criminology classes, I have usually devoted a lecture or two to global murder statistics. The countries perennially identified as having outrageous homicide rates include South Africa and several Latin American countries. The drug wars which have raged in Columbia for decades and in Mexico more recently put those countries among the top. And then there is Iraq, where sectarian strife has resulted in many thousands of civilian killings over the past decade.
I was a bit surprised to learn that Venezuela is now one of the top contenders - well above Iraq, South Africa, Columbia and Mexico. Since the election of President Chavez, criminal homicide in Venezuela has tripled - from about 25 to 55 per 100,000. Mexico’s rate is less than half as high, despite its well-publicized drug wars. Iraq’s rate is less than one third of Venezuela’s, despite sectarian violence.
Of course, murder rates are usually concentrated in (some) central cities, not evenly spread across an entire country. For example, since 2008, 28,000 Mexican civilians have been murdered, most of them in cities such as Juarez and Tijuana.
In Venezuela, murder is also concentrated in the major cities. Caracas’ murder rate is an astronomical 200 per 100,000. This is ten times higher than the rate in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which has long had a reputation of being extremely dangerous.
Things aren’t going well under President Chavez. Venezuela is the only Latin American country whose economy is shrinking. Inflation is 30%. The judicial system is corrupt, rallying around Chavez out of fear. Newspapers are forbidden to publish images of violent crimes. Only 1 in 10 murders leads to an arrest!
So that’s one country in a mess. Here are some rankings for 20 other countries around the globe:
The numbers are per 100,000, per year. So for example if you live in the most murderous country in the world - El Salvador - your chances of being murdered are 71 per 100,000 in any given year. This means that you have a 1 in 20 chance of being murdered over your lifetime.
El Salvador: 71 per 100,000
Honduras 67
Jamaica 58
South Africa 37
Russia 16
Mexico 14
Ukraine 7
US 5.4
Canada 1.8
France 1.6
UK 1.5
Spain 1.2
Ireland 1.1
Italy 1.1
Greece 1
Netherlands .9
Germany .9
Japan .4
Iceland .3
Liechtenstein: 0
Meaningless statistics, you may say. Yes and no. As I said, there is huge variation within each country. The dozens of thousands of soccer fans who went to the World Cup in South Africa were pretty safe.
Still, you can look at this way: If you live in El Salvador, your chances of being murdered over your lifetime, are 1 in 20, in Venezuela 1 in 25. In the US, it’s 1 in 260. In Canada, 1 in 800. In Japan, 1 in 4000, in Iceland 1 in 5000. You are safer traveling to Baghdad than to Caracas.leave comment here