See:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3879

Some quotes:

Crime has increased steadily for all the countries the United Nations measures, according to a 2003 U.N. report.

The streets of many cities have become more dangerous than war zones. Postcard-perfect Rio de Janeiro, for example, has become more dangerous than the bullet-riddled Gaza Strip. According to the Washington Post, 729 Palestinian and Israeli minors died as a result of violence and terrorism between 2002 and 2006. Yet in that same period, 1,857 minors were murdered in Rio.

The world’s most murderous region is the Caribbean, followed by South and West Africa, and then South America. But the trend is global. Russia’s homicide rate is roughly 20 times higher than Western Europe’s. Rising crime rates are also reported throughout Asia.

Unfortunately, while the consequences of high crime rates are clear, their causes are far less so. Consider, for example, the notion that crime is the inevitable consequence of poverty. This idea is as common as it is wrong. There is no correlation between poverty and crime.

End quotes.

MY OWN COMMENTS:

I am an immigrant to Australia. What made me leave my native South Africa?

Crime.

I felt that if I stayed I was playing Russian roulette with the lives of our children.

Mercifully Australia is a low-crime country. But I don't think there is any cause for complacency.

See also:

http://www.ftd.de/karriere_management/business_english/:Business%20English%20S%20Africa/227173.html

actually, steven, there is a very high correlation between crime and poverty. very few muggings in stives, plenty in redfern.

there's probably a very high correlation between crime and wealth, too.
but the coppers aren't equiped to catch white collar crooks, and generally only get the ones who overdo and become public.

it's only the middle class who behave themselves. probably from lack of opportunity.

Aaah DEMOS,

He lives in a world of absolute certainty.

He believes he knows the answers to all the complex social issues of the day.

As it happens, DEMOS, I've encountered a number of petty crooks. You know what they all had in common?

They were stupid.

I can put it no other way.

I don't mean they were bright people who did foolish things. I mean they were dim bulbs verging on being mentally retarded. They had limited reasoning ability. Some of them were dangerous but all of those I encountered were pathetic rather than evil.

I suspect that a major cause of crime in Western countries is that some people can't cope in a complex society in which a strong back and a willing pair of hands is not enough.

Of course drugs are often involved. We may be able to get rid of a lot of street crime by giving addicts the poison of their choice free.

But there does seem to be an irreducible minimum of people, mostly young men, who lash out because they are bewildered, frustrated and overcome with despair at their inability to make their way in our increasingly sophisticated society. Perhaps we need to introduce the idea of "sheltered employment" for people who are simply unable to help themselves.

And, no, I don’t think there is some wicked, capitalist, imperialist, Zionist, whatever plot to keep the inept unemployed.

While it is difficult to argue with some of the broad-brush issues raised in the FP article, some of it is disturbingly simplistic.

>>Consider, for example, the notion that crime is the inevitable consequence of poverty. This idea is as common as it is wrong. There is no correlation between poverty and crime<<

This is patent nonsense - at least, where crimes of violence are concerned. The mistake the authors make is to assume poverty is an absolute, when of course it is, like its cousin affluence, relative.

If you compare countries with each other at the gross level, obviously there will be no direct correlation. Within countries, it is a different story - violent crime in the US is most definitely correlated with the economic relativity of the urban poor, despite the fact that they have an income and a standard of living way above that of, say, a Mauritanian nomad.

Once you have swept the problem of relative disadvantage under the counter, you are at liberty to make the most ridiculously sweeping conclusions:

>>Consider China and India... If these two nations become more like other poor countries... their crime rates could soar to unimagined levels<<

Hang on - I thought "poor" had nothing to do with it?

All I can say is, all generalizations are false.

Yes, including that one.

Pericles,

In fact the FP article does address the question of INEQUALITY – as opposed to poverty.

>>So what drives up crime rates? Researchers can agree upon little beyond the general notion that crime soars in places where there is a combination of a high percentage of young males, ample drugs, and easy access to guns. ECONOMIC INEQUALITY and urbanization also accelerate crime rates (but experts disagree by how much). >>

(Emphasis added)

Inequality is certainly soaring in China and India. In India, especially, there is also a huge cohort of young men coming on stream.

In China and India a relative shortage of women may also play a role in driving up crime rates.

As Putnam has found, a lack of "social capital" may also drive increases in crime.

And – say it softly – an influx of young men from a different culture can often lead to the growth of criminal gangs.

See:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-06-25jl.html

"Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, ... is very nervous about releasing his new research, and understandably so. His five-year study shows that immigration and ethnic diversity have a devastating short- and medium-term influence on the social capital, fabric of associations, trust, and neighborliness that create and sustain communities...."

"In the 41 sites Putnam studied in the U.S., he found that the more diverse the neighborhood, the less residents trust neighbors."

"Diversity does not produce “bad race relations,” Putnam says. Rather, people in diverse communities tend “to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more, but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.” Putnam adds a crushing footnote: his findings “may UNDERESTIMATE the real effect of diversity on social withdrawal.”

(Emphasis in original)

Putnam's study makes uncomfortable reading. It is credible because Putnam was seeking to prove the opposite.

No Guys,
Apathy is the greatest killer.
We all want this comfy, cosy life and yet we allow kids who have been hand-fed this ridiculous existence to flourish.
Sorry, guys but we have allowed our kids to expect something for nothing as a given and not taught them to make their own way.
We have to get back to old values or pay the price.