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Comment by byrnedo | Hacker News Reader

Murders / 100k people in Sweden: 4. Chicago has 27.

It's actually less than that for Sweden, namely 3.1 for the year of 2015: https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/013dc374/2. Top right chart.

Comparing Sweden to Chicago seems a bit of a stretch. A number more directly comparable would be the US Non-Black homicide rate, which was 2.54 per 100,000 in 2015.

I think that's lower than the Sweden figure in the sibling comment.

[Edit: I had said that this rate was also lower than England. I was wrong on that one. ]

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

The actual rate for Sweden and the UK is 0.9, each. So even the 'non-black' rate in the US is higher than both, put together.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intenti...

I recommend double checking reference tables in Wikipedia.

It is conveniently displayed first in search results, however for Sweden:

https://www.bra.se/download/18.358de3051533ffea5ea7f2cf/1459...

  > 305 Completed murder, manslaughter and assault resulting in death.
  > 9,851,017 Total population

= 3.1 per 100000 people

The differences are due to different definitions of intentional homicide between countries, which is why I would argue a UN study with its own definition is better for comparison than a Swedish and US source.

I was wrong on England's rate. Thanks for the correction!

Well, considering the Malmo rate is 3.4, it's still quite a factor reduced from that. Malmo might be considered the most 'dangerous' city in Sweden (please correct me if anyone disagrees? I guess Stockholm is probably statistically a better choice due to the sheer size difference).

Wow, way to cherry pick!

The U.S. homicide rate is 4.5.

If you mean that by choosing one city in the US vrs the whole country's rate then you're right.

But my point was that Sweden is incomparable to the USA (Sweden has a population approaching 10 million). You'd find it very hard to find a city in the Nordics approaching that of some in the US.

(1) Yes, well I think there's no disagreement that Sweden is far more homogeneous than the US.

Sweden is 99% Caucasian and 66% Lutheran. The US is 63% Caucasian and 23% Catholic. Sweden has 10 million? That's the metropolitan Chicago area.

(2) Here's the way averages work: if US homicide rate is 4.5 (Illinois is 3.5 but let's stick with the national rate) and Chicago is 27, there are five Chicago-equivalents with a homicide rate of 0, or nine Chicago-equivalents with a rate of 2.

Mentioning Chicago as more murderous than Sweden, but failing to mention the nine related cities less murderous is stastical gerrymandering.

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