““The Small Arms Survey makes it look as though there are only twenty-five countries with higher homicide rates than the U.S. In fact, there are 101 countries with higher rates. So how do homicide rates compare across all 192 countries for which the UN provides data?7 For 2008, the U.S. rate was slightly less than 5.4 homicides per 100,000 people. The worldwide rate was 10.5 (about twice the U.S. rate), and the median was six per 100,000. Yet there is one important caveat to realize when looking at these numbers—they are provided by the countries themselves, and you can’t always trust their numbers. Politicians and dictators like to give the impression that they are doing a better job than they actually are. This is a problem in some United States jurisdictions such as Chicago, where what look like murders are reclassified as “noncriminal death investigations.””
