Seven of the ten most violent countries in the world are Latin American: The World Heath Organization provides data on homicide rates in more than 70 countries. Here are the most recent estimates:


Male homicide victimizations per 100,000--most recent year available

1. Colombia 117.0
2. El Salvador 70.0
3. Sri Lanka 50.8
4. Russia 50.2
5. Brazil 49.0
6. Venezuela 48.7
7. Puerto Rico 33.2
8. Guatemala 32.1
9. Ecuador 30.8
10. Philippines 28.3

11. Paraguay 22.2
12. Kazakhstan 20.0
13. Estonia 19.6
14. Mexico 18.0
15. Ukraine 17.8
16. Panama 17.5
17. Latvia 16.8
18. Belarus 15.7
19. Moldova 14.7
20. Trinidad and Tobago 13.2

21. Argentina 12.1
22. Turkmenistan 11.9
23. Albania 11.8
24. Lithuania 11.7
25. Costa Rica 9.8
26. Chile 9.8
27. Kyrgyzstan 9.6
28. Thailand 9.5
29. USA 9.2
30. Uruguay 8.6

31. Cuba 7.9
32. Guyana 7.7
33. Georgia 6.9
34. Romania 5.2
35. Bulgaria 4.6
36. Uzbekistan 4.4
37. Azerbaijan 4.4
38. Armenia 3.6
39. Israel 3.5
40. Finland 3.5

41. Slovakia 3.4
42. Mauritius 3.2
43. Hungary 2.8
44. Poland 2.6
45. Portugal 2.5
46. Canada 2.2
47. Australia 2.1
48. Belgium 2.0
49. Slovenia 1.9
50. Korea 1.8

51. Ireland 1.8
52. Croatia 1.8
53. Bahrain 1.8
54. New Zealand 1.7
55. Spain 1.6
56. Netherlands 1.6
57. Greece 1.6
58. Czech Republic 1.6
59. Italy 1.5
60. Sweden 1.3

61. UK 1.2
62. Kuwait 1.1
63. France 1.1
64. Denmark 1.1
65. Norway 0.9
66. Hong Kong 0.9
67. Germany 0.8
68. Singapore 0.8
69. Switzerland 0.7
70. Austria 0.7

71. Japan 0.7
72. Egypt 0.1


The United States has a homicide problem, and one way to look at these numbers is in terms of how immigrants are likely to improve or worsen the level of violence here. Immigrants from East Asian and Western European regions should make things better, while people from Latin America should worsen the problem. Eastern Europe is a mixed bag. Of course, sub-Saharan Africa is also violent, but the countries don't have their act together enough to collect the necessary data.

Let's compare Colombia and Japan: the rate is 167 times higher in Cokumbia!

Now, of course, it's more complicated than this since immigrants are not usually representative of their mother countries, and conditions are different here than at home. But there is certainly a correlation: Asians and Western Europeans immigrants have proven to be law-abiding here, while Latin Americans have above-average rates of criminal involvement.

These patterns also undermine the arguments that social conditions in the U.S. generate criminality among immigrants: people who come here from violent countries tend to be violent here. They bring the proclivity with them.

One other point. An academic explanation of crime which has gone from being new and unknown to dominant in the past decade is called institutional anomie theory. It claims that societies have a crime problem to the extent that the economy dominates over other important institutions: families, schools, churches, government, etc. The free market generates the motivation to break the law, while all these other segments of society constrain behavior.

The bottom line here is that the freer the economy, the more crime that will be observed. Now, I can imagine an honest theoretician a century ago suggesting such an explanation, but even an amateur now knows that the data contradict this idea. Just look at the list. Many of the freest societies have little homicide, while many heavily regulated societies have a real problem.

International data is widely available, so Steven Messner and Richard Rosenfeld (the theorists) have no excuse. This is an obvious case of responding to the political demands of the discipline, rather than the realities of crime.

I'll say it again: mainstream social science is a sham.