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*Cue Team America Music*

"USA Today has come out with a new survey - apparently, three out of every four people make up 75% of the population."
-- David letterman

Statistics can be made to say or manipulate outcomes however you want hence why they are just that -- statistics. My personal favorite is the amount of deaths occur of (insert word) a year . If even a fraction of those stats were correct population growth wouldn't be a major concern.

There's a few general rules when it comes to statistics. If a stat is given without context it's probably rubbish. In this case there's no effort made to qualify exactly what was used to determine these figures and there's no commentary on where methodological differences might produce discrepancies. That stuff is probably available in the original report so if someone tracked that down and read it they'd probably come away with a fair bit of insight into the actual differences in violent crime rates between countries. Just looking at a couple of numbers without context isn't much use, though.

Another general rule about stats is that they only get brought up to say something is bad. For instance, the last line in the second article states 'Violent crime in England and Wales has fallen by almost a half since a peak in 1995' which is a really good thing... so it doesn't get reported. But if you can find a stat saying violent crime in England is bad, well then you know the papers will jump all over that.




Falconlance, there's only one hard rule on the internet - 'don't read the comments'.

Well I agree with all of that, however ftr this line..

sebster wrote:For instance, the last line in the second article states 'Violent crime in England and Wales has fallen by almost a half since a peak in 1995'

is a quote from the home ofice and is no different from all the other claims in the article.

sebster wrote:Falconlance, there's only one hard rule on the internet - 'don't read the comments'.

You forgot Rule 34.

whatwhat wrote:is a quote from the home ofice and is no different from all the other claims in the article.

True. I didn't mean to imply it was any more useful, I was just pointing out that one stat without context was reported in multiple papers, another stat without context was not.

I just find it really hard to to think that the UK is a violent cesspool, i've never been attacked once in anyway at all. Hell where I live crime really isn't a problem.

Lord Bingo wrote:I just find it really hard to to think that the UK is a violent cesspool, i've never been attacked once in anyway at all. Hell where I live crime really isn't a problem.

If you look around and don't see the victim, maybe YOU'RE the criminal

I keed I keed [

Clearly, the UK needs more guns.

Frazzled wrote:

Lord Bingo wrote:I just find it really hard to to think that the UK is a violent cesspool, i've never been attacked once in anyway at all. Hell where I live crime really isn't a problem.

If you look around and don't see the victim, maybe YOU'RE the criminal

I keed I keed [

Some of my relatives, shall we say always find themselves on the wrong side of the law. I for one have never been in trouble with the rozzers.

Cane wrote:*Cue Team America Music*

JohnHwangDD wrote:Clearly, the UK needs more guns.

Oh yeah, that'll solve EVERYFINK!!!

...In case you didn't know, that was classic sarcasm there.

Guns are dumb.
People are dumb.
Giving guns to people is DOUBLY DUMB!

Therefore Guns + People = EPIC FAIL!

Emperors Faithful wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Clearly, the UK needs more guns.

Oh yeah, that'll solve EVERYFINK!!!

...In case you didn't know, that was classic sarcasm there.

Guns are tools!
People are dumb.
Giving guns to dumb people is DOUBLY DUMB!

Therefore Guns + Stupid People = EPIC FAIL!

Fixed it for you!

If they did the same Poll in Aus....

Biggest Killers..

1.Alligators.
2.Spiders.
3.Sting-Rays.
4.Blue-Bottles.

None of which you can Arrest, but alot you can eat.

That is why our Crime rate is so low.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:And that is why it was Britain who ruled the world for a fair while!

I figure if you go back far enough, most cultures have an era where they were on top. The problem is, unless you lived there during that era, it doesn't really help you much.

If you guys down under weren't so stupid as to go around pissing off alligators and stepping on sting rays, you'd have more of a normal, first world cause of death list...

Lord Bingo wrote:I just find it really hard to to think that the UK is a violent cesspool, i've never been attacked once in anyway at all. Hell where I live crime really isn't a problem.

That's because you are one of the 97,966 out of 100,000 people that wasn't involved in a violent crime.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Clearly, the UK needs more guns.

Oh yeah, that'll solve EVERYFINK!!!

...In case you didn't know, that was classic sarcasm there.

Internets are dumb.
People are dumb.
Giving internets to people is DOUBLY DUMB!

Therefore this post = EPIC FAIL!

Fixed. :/

Doctor Thunder wrote:That's because you are one of the 97,966 out of 100,000 people that wasn't involved in a violent crime.

Quiet, Thunder! You'll ruin the illusion of us living in a nightmarish warzone!

hmmm, Doc Thunder has a point.

I just can't picture the UK being the most violent country though.

@ JohnHwangDD - lol.

@JohnDwangDD: Strange, for a second I thought you were trying to INSULT us!

Thanks for thr compliment, lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually Aus has a certain strange history with thier leader. Our own modern Arthur in fact.

A while ago, a PM (can't remember which) was swimming up north (guarded as well with escorts) when he just...dissapeared.

Some say he will return in Aus' direst hour...

IN YOUR FACE LIMEYS!

*runs off to fire guns wildly*


Automatically Appended Next Post:
IN YOUR FACE LIMEYS!

*runs off to fire guns wildly*


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Son of a doubleposting harlot. Stupid internet connection futzing up.

Yes. I'm that excited.

Emperors Faithful wrote:A while ago, a PM (can't remember which) was swimming up north (guarded as well with escorts) when he just...dissapeared.

Some say he will return in Aus' direst hour...

Harold Holt. He was only Prime Minister for about two years, but in that time did a lot to turn Australia from the overtly racist country it was into the slightly racist one it is now. He also put us into Vietnam.

Then went swimming off a beach in Victoria and disappeared completely. I like the story where he was picked up by a Chinese submarine the best.

Well, I do have to say I was disappointed when Steve Irwin replaced Paul Hogan as your nation's poster boy in the States...

Tho, probably not half as much as you native Australians.

It could have been worse....

DUN!DUN!DUUUUUUN!

Lord Bingo wrote:I just find it really hard to to think that the UK is a violent cesspool, i've never been attacked once in anyway at all. Hell where I live crime really isn't a problem.

The UK isn't a violent cesspool.

A lot of the violence is outside town centre pubs at midnight, and on council sink estates. If you can avoid those places you are very safe. There are some other areas which are a bit dodgy and you need some streetwise skills to avoid getting pickpocketed or into a confrontation, but really there are places like that in Japan, too.

I must try to find time to dig into these reports and do a bit of analysis.

akira5665 wrote:If they did the same Poll in Aus....

Biggest Killers..

1.Alligators.
2.Spiders.
3.Sting-Rays.
4.Blue-Bottles.

None of which you can Arrest, but alot you can eat.

That is why our Crime rate is so low.

Australia, eating the highest causes of death since 1880, BECASUE THEY ARE TASTY!!!
Yea!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

JohnHwangDD wrote:If you guys down under weren't so stupid as to go around pissing off alligators and stepping on sting rays, you'd have more of a normal, first world cause of death list...

Thats a crocodile JH. My Cajun speaking alligator neighbors will be comoing to help you with your error. If you hear a croaking that sounds like a really BIG toad outside your house, stay in the house. They generally stay outside, mostly.

I did some research into this research.

The report referred to isn’t identified by name in any of the news reports I read. We only are told that it was compiled by the Conservative party using figures released by the “European Commission”. I note that the original report was made by the Daily Mail and subsequent reports have referred to the Daily Mail as the source of the information.

I checked the news section of the Conservative Party web site. There is no mention of a release of such a report this year.

According to the Home Office crime reduction website, the latest available reports on international crime stats are dated 1999, 2003, 2004 and 2007. (This page was updated April 27 2009 and may be out of date. Note that a report released in 2007 could not cover 2007.)

I followed a few of the suggested links to international crime information websites. A lot of them didn’t work, or took me to pages in Russian and other such problems. I was unable to find any recent EU figures.

I checked some other sites such as the US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics site, the Council of European Social Science Data Archives and the UN Surveys on Crime Trends. I was unable to find data which would cover the period up to 2007.