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Even though France and Sweden have higher crime rates than the USA, why do I have an impression that the USA is more crime-ridden than other OECD countries?

Also, even though Russia has a much lower crime rate than the USA, why do I have an impression that it is a more violent country than the USA (e.g. Russian mafia, etc.)?

Is it because of Hollywood movies, media, or international politics?

Obie 2.0
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user366312
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    Who are "The World Population Review"? – WS2 May 27 '22 at 21:31
  • @WS2, An US research agency, apparently. – user366312 May 27 '22 at 21:37
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    Probably should investigate the magnitude of these crimes ... – Azor Ahai -him- May 27 '22 at 21:41
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    Official crime stats give "damn lies" a bad name. There is little substantive that can be said from official crime statistics. Often they reflect the attitude to the police in recording and the population in reporting crime more than the actual number of crimes. – James K May 27 '22 at 22:24
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    It's probably due to the types of crimes, rather than the overall rate. The US has the highest rate of gun violence among western democracies, and our frequent mass shootings (2 well known ones in the past 2 weeks) make the news around the world. – Barmar May 27 '22 at 22:47
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    Regardless of actual crime rates, media portrayals certainly do play a role in perceptions of other countries in the US. In movies, Sweden and especially France are where people go for romantic vacations, whereas Russia is a source of menacing Mafiya gangsters. That is bound to influence perceptions in the US. – Obie 2.0 May 28 '22 at 03:04
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    "why do most people have an impression" I think this statement really could use a bit of backup. Who are most people, what impression do they have exactly and who says that they have this impression. It could be that this question is about something that doesn't really exist (the impression). One should also keep in mind that different kind of crimes are differently visible. Homicides are more visible than theft for example. A broad and cumulative crime rate (maybe even distorted by reporting etc.) might be insufficient to compare criminal activity. – NoDataDumpNoContribution May 28 '22 at 08:16
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    This question would benefit from some sort of evidence that such a misconception exists. There's certainly a perception that "gun* crime is relatively rampant in the US, but that is objectively true. – Brian Z May 28 '22 at 12:06
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    @JamesK What crime statistics primarily reflect is the criminal laws of the country - what is a capital crime to one, might be state-mandated policy to the other: see abortion as one example, lèse-majesté as another. – ccprog May 28 '22 at 17:38
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    Differences in definition is probably part of the issue. In the UK the definition of violent crime (for example) is very wide, it includes: Violent crimes are those where the victim is intentionally stabbed, punched, kicked, pushed, jostled, etc. or threatened with violence whether or not there is any injury, homicide, death by driving offences, corporate manslaughter, Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH) with and without intent, Actual Bodily Harm (ABH), threats to kill, possession of weapons, harassment offences, public fear, alarm or distress offences, assault without injury... – Dave Gremlin May 28 '22 at 18:24
  • ...the use of firearms (including imitation firearms and air weapons), offences involving the use of a knife or sharp instrument, sexual offences (rape, sexual assault and sexual activity with children, exploitation of prostitution and soliciting, sexual grooming, indecent exposure), stalking, robbery, intimate personal violence (domestic abuse, partner abuse (non-sexual), family abuse (non-sexual) which includes emotional or financial abuse. See https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/116226/user-guide-crime-statistics.pdf page 20+ – Dave Gremlin May 28 '22 at 18:25
  • @user366312 they only say they are an "independent organization" only, in the About page? – NotStanding with GoGotaHome May 29 '22 at 04:09
  • @WS2 They cite a report from Numbeo and calls it a 2020 Crime rate index, but Numbeo themselves call it "Crime Index by Country 2022"; quote: This section is based on surveys from visitors of this website? See more: Numbeo - About – NotStanding with GoGotaHome May 29 '22 at 04:13
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    @DaveGremlin And Sweden keeps getting attacked on it's "rape" rate--while much of what is "rape" there would be "sexual assault" here. – Loren Pechtel May 30 '22 at 00:40
  • Here is a different picture: https://www.armormax.com/blog/what-country-has-the-highest-crime-rate-lowest-crime-rate/ – U. Windl May 30 '22 at 10:10
  • Different countries categorize differently, so the stats aren't always easily comparable. Not that your impressions are correct, but your dependence on the stats to inform these impressions may be too much. –  May 30 '22 at 20:25
  • What is your definition of a "crime" ? Walking in France's streets would be more dangerous than in US streets :) ? This is typical of a way to lie with statistics using highly non-homogeneous data. Homicide rate for example would give a valid comparison basis (even if all homicides haven't been reported or qualified as such which is not the case in some countries, dealing with violence to women in particular) – Jean Marie Becker May 30 '22 at 21:45
  • Related question. – Erwan May 31 '22 at 14:00
  • It's wealth disparity. In studies across all human societies, all of them from tribes in Papua New Guinea to the US to Japan, there is 1 factor that correllates with violent crime rate: wealth disparity. When it is high, violent crime is high. When it is low, crime is low. No other factor need be included to accurately predict level of violent crime in any society. The book 'Nine Crazy Ideas in Science' covers this in chapter 1 (which was actually looking at guns, but ended up at wealth disparity), I don't know the study they cited unfortunately. – otakucode Oct 07 '22 at 15:47

3 Answers3

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It's largely about perception, and about how countries are portrayed in popular culture. For instance, consider the Bahamas. If you asked people in the United States how dangerous the Bahamas were, I would hazard a guess that they wouldn't consider them very dangerous. Why? Because the reputation of the Bahamas is as a relaxing vacation spot, where people go to enjoy the beaches and drink fruit-flavored alcoholic beverages. In reality, of course, the intentional homicide rate in the Bahamas in recent years has been well over twice that in the United States.

Europe in general, and France in particular, have a similar reputation as romantic vacation getaways. Consider the recent show Emily in Paris, a whole series about someone from the US confronting the gap between their idealized image of France and the reality of the country. As such, crimes are not on the front of most people's minds when they think about France or Sweden.

By contrast, after the Soviet period, one of Russia's primary roles in American media has been to serve as a source of apolitical villains, often from the Mafiya. Think Anton Ivanov, the heavily Russian-accented (though played by the very not-Russian Zach McGowan) villain on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Naturally, this leads to an impression of Russia as having more crime than would otherwise be the case.

Obie 2.0
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    There is also the nature of crime to consider. Where I live, in western Europe, an illegal gun is easily available to connected criminals. Those are about making money and keeping a low profile, mostly. – o.m. May 28 '22 at 04:58
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    Indeed, the homicide rate alone is not an indicator of the perception of safety, but there is another factor: what kind of homicide it is. The common person doesn't have to fear high-level crime organizations if he doesn't get mixed up and doesn't use its "services" (illegal drugs, gambling, loansharks, etc.), but common street thugs do present a danger. So even if high-profile crime organizations caused more death and injury than common street thugs, muggers, etc., the average citizen is more affected by the latter than by the former. – vsz May 29 '22 at 12:07
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    @vsz Which is why Americans aren't up in arms about our high murder rate--most of them are criminals killing criminals and virtually no threat to those who don't associate with criminals. People evaluate crime by the risk they face, not the overall risk. – Loren Pechtel May 30 '22 at 00:44
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    @LorenPechtel unless you are unfortunate to live in place with high population of "criminals", in which case the possibility of getting hit by a stray bullet or be caught in a crossfire would become very real. Not that the general public cares about "unfortunates" either. – Dan M. May 30 '22 at 16:15
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I got my answer.

Some crimes are more visible than others as they are always registered by the police, and also, brought up by the media on a regular basis. Two of them are murders, and robberies (both armed and unarmed).

According to the above link, the USA has the highest murder rate in the OECD. Russia has the highest murder rate among the white countries (i.e., countries with a dominant racially white population).

Also, according to the above link, the USA has the 6th highest robbery rate in the OECD while Russia is at the bottom of the list.

Hence this impression.

user366312
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    Maybe add some comment about why this gives a better idea than the statistic cited by OP. Their statistic uses all crimes reported to the police. So it completely disregards severity of the crime and especially for minor crimes what is and isn't reported to the polic varies widely by country. – quarague May 28 '22 at 06:34
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    Also worth noting great interstate variation within the U.S. (12.4 per 100K in Louisiana but 1 per 100K in NH), and that U.S. homicides are down about 50% from their peak in the 1990s. Recent history and extremes drive perceptions. See, e.g. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/murder-rate-by-state and https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murder-homicide-rate – ohwilleke May 28 '22 at 08:41
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    How are these figures gathered? The Crime Survey for England and Wales was set up to provide a better reflection of the true level of crime than police stats since it includes crimes that haven't been reported to or recorded by, the police. Over a third of reports of violent crimes are not recorded by police. It captures crimes that people don't report because they think the crime was too trivial or the police could not do much about it. It also provides a better measure of trends over time since it has a consistent methodology and is unaffected by changes in reporting or recording practices. – Dave Gremlin May 28 '22 at 18:35
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    @quarague The poster is the OP! (But your very good point still stands.) – Araucaria - him. May 29 '22 at 00:43
  • Keep in mind that crime rates between countries are hard to compare. First, it depend on what behavior is and is not illegal in a given country. If there were no criminal laws, then there would by definition be no crime. Second, in order for a crime to show up in the statistics, it first needs to be reported to the authorities. And cultural factors can affect how likely it is for which crimes to get reported. – Philipp May 29 '22 at 15:09
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    What are white countries? – user121330 May 29 '22 at 15:11
  • @user121330 I presume this is OPs viewpoint – JonathanReez May 29 '22 at 20:01
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    In my opinion murder rates are the best indicator as report rate for murders is the normally highest. Also is arguably the worst kind of crime so ir should be heavily weighted when mixed, for example, with robberies. – m e May 30 '22 at 08:09
  • There is another point that will skew the statistics. In my country often petty crimes are not even reported, unless there is an insurance payment to claim. I can bet that in many areas in the US it is the same, but probably in countries like Sweden they are reported more often. – FluidCode May 30 '22 at 13:18
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From the site you linked:

Overall crime rate is calculated by dividing the total number of reported crimes of any kind by the total population

So on that visualization, shoplifting counts as one crime, so does murder. Comparing a specific type of crime is more meaningful (as your own answer noted) for example the rate of murders:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/murder-rate-by-country

So your impression that "the USA is more crime-ridden than [France and Sweden]" is probably accurate. The issue is that the "Crime Rate" statistic does not represent how "Crime Ridden" a country is very well.

actual_kangaroo
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