.......Let us know how wrong this is.
Wow, a random guy on the internets with facts!! You never see that nowadays! :0 Oh, wait......Maybe not wrong.......but very misleading if you only take the overall figure and compare the two, but that would deflate his argument which is maybe why he didn't go into more detail.
My first question was what the UK and US consider 'violent crimes'? From what I can see they both have very similar definitions that include murder/homicide, robberies, rapes, burglary, motor vehicle theft and a few others. Drilling down to the numbers in the actual categories tell a bit more complete story though.
Here are some pretty straightforward crime rates that can easily be compared between the two countries crime data, I used crimes reported to police like the FBI crime figures that were originally highlighted and not crime surveys like the US's National Crime Victim Survey and the UK's British Crime Survey. I had to do the math on the UK rates since they don't have them in the paper I used summarizing the stats, they just have the total numbers and I tried to apply the FBI crime definitions to the UK categories which are broken down into more detailed descriptions. All numbers are the rate per 100,000 and are for the US 2011 and for the UK 2010/11, (12 months over both years) using 56 million for the combined population of England and Wales:
FBI crime rates link
UK Home Office crime rates link
US Forcible Rape Rate - 26.8
UK Rape Rate - 28.4*
*Page 43, including male and female
US Burglary Rate - 702.2
UK Burglary Rate - 933.3**
**I used 'Total Burglary Offences' from page 44
US Murder Rate - 4.7
UK Murder Rate - 1.15^
^Page 42
US Vehicle Theft Rate - 229.6
UK Vehicle Theft Rate - 189.5*** or 243.2#
***I used 'Aggravated vehicle taking' and 'Theft or unauthorised taking of vehicle', page 44
#Includes 'Interfering with a motor vehicle' in addition to the two figures above which by the UK definition includes "tampering with a motor vehicle", you could include it as possible attempted theft which is included in the FBI definition but I don't see it in the UK figures. Neither UK rate includes 'Theft from vehicle' which is not in the FBI definition, again from page 44
So some of the more easily compared violent crime numbers aren't really that much different at all, especially when contrasted with the difference in the overall rate of violent crime the random dude on the internet uses. So where do the difference come from? A good example is the aggravated assault/violence against person rates:
US Aggravated Assault Rate - 241.1
UK Rate of Violence against the person - with Injury (minus deaths) - 656.4^^^
UK Rate of Violence against the person - with and without Injury (minus deaths) - 1465.9^^^
^^^Page 42
A close look at the rates though show a dramatic rise in the UK violence against person- with injury rate, more than doubling in 4 years, then falling by more than 50% from that peak all in less than 10 years. The vast majority of that change comes from 'Less serious wounding' and the now equivalent 'Actual Bodily Harm and other injury' numbers. Since none of the other violent crime rates have such dramatic variations within the past ten years it makes me wonder about reporting requirements and definitions changing across England and Wales. There is also a bit of a difference in definition of assault between the two countries WRT to the rates in the links with the UK one being much more broad. The
FBI definition of aggravated assaults include assaults including violence and attempted violence while the UK 'without injury' rate includes such things 'Public fear, alarm and distress'. I haven't found where the FBI breaks down the numbers in such detail.
So what do all the above rates say? For most of the easily comparable rates to include rape, burglary and vehicle theft the rates in the UK and US aren't all that different. Probably the rate easiest to measure, the homicide rate, shows a dramatic difference between the two countries. The big difference occurs in the assault rates, I proposed a reason for the huge discrepancy but I can't say for sure that is the reason though for the difference. Either way I would prefer to have 'less serious wounds' than be dead.
So in summary I wasted a good chunk of a slow day actually looking up the data from the sources instead of being lazy and relying on a single random guy from the internets. It is also a little puzzling why he claims the few seem to have noticed that crime rates in the US have fallen so dramatically and why no one seems to ask why that has happened. I guess he hasn't cracked a paper recently or watched the news since I have seen that reported repeatedly. The why it is still being debated but NYC seems to have a good handle on focusing on the what and where and maybe that is why their crime rates continue to drop dramatically from the rates they were at 20, 10 and even 5 years ago.
So, too much? Too little? Do you even care? Or is it just not enough truthiness?