Your 2012 Demographics of the Day post

[Razgovory]

We had a murder in town just this week.  Two guys decided to rob a third man by telling him they would sell him drugs.  Everyone huddles into a car for the deal, and when the robbers tell their prospective victim that they didn't have any drugs and they were just going to take the money a gun fight broke out.  One robber wounded and the victim dead.  I suppose it's a bad idea to have a gun fight in a car.

[Martinus]

There were approximately 600 cases of manslaughter in 2012 in the whole of Poland.

Do they only prosecute manslaughter cases there because Poles are incapable of premeditation and forethought?

Yes.

But I should have said "homicide" instead.

[Kleves]

You know, if you took away all the blacks and guns, Baltimore would be a pretty safe city.

[Razgovory]

You know, if you took away all the blacks and guns, Baltimore would be a pretty safe city.

It would be called a "small town" if you did that.

[DGuller]

There were 22 murders in HK in the first 10 months in 2012. 

http://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/09_statistics/csc.html

We are a city of 7 million.

That doesn't make sense.  You can't even have a gun for defense there.

[Viking]

You know, if you took away all the blacks and guns, Baltimore would be a pretty safe city village.

fyp

[Kleves]

There'd still be 200,000+ people, with something like ~12 murders a year. 

[lustindarkness]

This is why I don't live in Puerto Rico any more:

la Oficina de Prensa de la Policía detalló que el año 2012 cerró con 978 asesinatos, 186 menos que los reportados en el 2011.

2012 had 978 murders, 186 less than 2011.

[Tonitrus]

It seems almost every country south of the U.S. has crazy-high murder rates.

IIRC, Venezuela beats out Afghanistan for homicide levels.

[dps]

looks like a pretty big fat 'loosen drug laws' message

3 drug-related ones.

lots of unknowns and 61per cent with drug related arrests

Or, it could be a pretty good argument that druggies are just murderous thugs at heart.

[Admiral Yi]

looks like a pretty big fat 'loosen drug laws' message

3 drug-related ones.

lots of unknowns and 61per cent with drug related arrests

Or, it could be a pretty good argument that druggies are just murderous thugs at heart.

That's the natural conclusion.  What were you thinking Squeeze, that America's overly strict drug laws drove people to murder? 

[Malthus]

Am I reading the stats correctly that less than half of murders were solved? How does that stack up to other cities?

[Valmy]

Am I reading the stats correctly that less than half of murders were solved? How does that stack up to other cities?

That is pretty unusually low I think.  In Texas the statewide is 71% clearance.  Austin has a pretty low number of murders compared to Baltimore (typically between 15 and 30 in a city of 900,000) so our clearance rates are not really very comparable.  When you have over 200 that puts a big strain on police resources.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The clear up rate for homicide in the UK is 95%; the numbers being low enough for substantial resources to be devoted to each case. It makes one wonder if there is a critical zone where, once a certain number of murders has been reached, clear up rates start to fall and the murder rate responds by increasing even further 

Take the drug-related killings in Mexico; even if the police there were wonderfully clever and incorruptible it is hard to see how they could deal with the sheer volume of cases.

[dps]

The clear up rate for homicide in the UK is 95%; the numbers being low enough for substantial resources to be devoted to each case. It makes one wonder if there is a critical zone where, once a certain number of murders has been reached, clear up rates start to fall and the murder rate responds by increasing even further 

Take the drug-related killings in Mexico; even if the police there were wonderfully clever and incorruptible it is hard to see how they could deal with the sheer volume of cases.

There may also be something else at work.  There is a popular perception that cops really don't much care if a drug dealer or drug addict gets killed in a drug deal gone sour, or even killings in a turf war between drug dealers, as long as innocent bystanders aren't getting killed, too.  I'm not sure if that perception is accurate or not--Seedy could address the issue--but if it is, then it might explain why the closure rate is so low when so many of the killings appear to be drug-related.