OECD homicide rates

The Herald reported:

One-in-five murder victims around the world is Brazilian, Colombian or Venezuelan, a study has shown, despite the three countries containing less than four per cent of the world’s total population.

Click here to see the interactive map

The Homicide Monitor data project compiled by the Brazil-based Instituto Igarape reveals the high rates of homicide around Latin America and the Caribbean, where a third of all of the world’s homicides occur.

The region contains only eight per cent of the world’s total population.

Honduras (85.5 murders per 100,000 inhabitants), Venezuela (53.7) and the US Virgin Islands (46.9) have the highest murder rates per population in the world.

By contrast, New Zealand’s homicide rate is 0.9 per 100,000 population (as of 2012), while Australia’s is 1.1.

And:

But owing to Brazil and Colombia’s largest overall population, these two countries – along with Venezeula – are responsible for one-in-five of all murders in the world each year.

Wow. That is huge.

So how does NZ compare with other (non-micro) OECD countries. The rates per 100,000 from lowest to highest is:

1. Luxembourg 0.2
2. Denmark 0.3
3. Iceland 0.3
4. UK 0.3
5. Japan 0.3
6. Austria 0.4
7. Slovenia 0.4
8. Germany 0.5
9. Australia 0.8
10. Switzerland 0.5
11. France 0.6
12. Norway 0.6
13. Spain 0.6
14. Italy 0.7
15. Sweden 0.7
16. Ireland 0.8
17. Czech Republic 0.8
18. New Zealand 0.9
19. Poland 0.9
20. Netherlands 0.9
21. South Korea 1.1
22. Portugal 1.1
23. Belgium 1.1
24. Slovak Republic 1.2
25. Hungary 1.3
26. Finland 1.4
27. Canada 1.5
28. Greece 1.6
29. Israel 2.3
30. Chile 4.4
31. Estonia 4.8
32. USA 5.2
33. Mexico 23.4

So NZ is around middle of the pack. We had 41 murders last year. To match the best OECD countries, that needs to reduce to 15 or so.