Justice
What the Most Violent Nations in the World Have in Common
High rates of intentional violence are strongly associated with inequality, both in terms of class and gender.
We've written a lot on Cities about why some cities, metros areas, and states are more violent than others. I even posted a while back comparing gun homicide rates in U.S. cities to those of the most violent nations in the world. Today, I turn to the question: Why are some nations so much more violent than others?
The variation is frankly incredible. According to comparative statistics from the United Nations, intentional homicides vary from less than one per hundred thousand people in Japan (0.5) and Singapore (0.4) to more than 50 murders per hundred thousand in the Ivory Coast (56.9), Jamaica (59.5) and Honduras (61.3). The rate for the United States is 5.4, though this varies widely by city and metro area, as I have noted.