Q:The average person had roughly a one in 16,000 chance of
being bumped off in 2012. However in the United States the murder rate is how
much?
A: One in 6,100. There are more
than four times as high as the rest of the world. Western Europe and East Asia
are the safest regions. Among those countries whose populations number in
millions, the safest is Singapore, which clocked up just 11 murders in 2012, or
one killing per 480,000 people. In Honduras, the world’s most violent country,
one in every 1,100 residents was killed. If you are a woman, your chance of being murdered will be
barely a quarter what it would be were you a man. In fact, steer clear of men
altogether: nearly half of all female murder-victims are killed by their
partner or another (usually male) family member. But note that the gender
imbalance is less pronounced in the rich world, probably because there is less
banditry, a mainly male pursuit. In Japan and South Korea slightly over half of
all murder victims are female. And if you are killed? The chances are no one
will be convicted. Worldwide only 43% of murders result in someone being put
behind bars. This, too, varies hugely: whereas Europe’s police solve eight out
of ten murders and those in Asia clear up nearly half, three-quarters of
killers in the Americas escape justice (a smaller share in North America; a
higher one elsewhere in the region).
