From the Nice News newsletter:
Multiple recent data reports show lower crime rates in the United States and beyond, evidence that the world, on the whole, is getting safer. Jeff Asher, of AH Datalytics, penned an analysis in The Atlantic with crime information from 2023 so far, finding a "sharp and broad decline" in murder rates. The preliminary numbers indicate that the country "may be experiencing one of the largest annual percent changes in murder ever recorded."
Asher said his data shows a roughly 12% average drop in murders across 90 U.S. cities from January through May compared to the same time period last year. More specifically, murder is down 13% in New York City, 20% in Los Angeles, Houston, and Philadelphia, and 30% in Jackson, Mississippi; Atlanta, Georgia; Little Rock, Arkansas; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and more. "Whatever the causes, and whatever the staying power, the first five months of 2023 have produced an encouraging overall trend for the first time in years," he wrote.And it's not just America. A report from the U.K.'s Office for National Statistics found that crime in England and Wales was down 12% in 2022 when compared with the pre-pandemic year ending in March 2020, with domestic burglary and criminal damage each down almost 25%.
To take things worldwide, 20 of the 38 countries tracked by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have murder rates below one per 100,000 -- a significant jump from just five 30 years ago, Positive.News reports.
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