I spotted this interesting graph on the Marginal Revolution blog. It was reproduced from here.
Homicide Rates
The graph is based on research by Claude Fischer, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Alex T, one of the bloggers at MR summed it up this way: The bottom line is that there has been a big and welcome decrease in homicide rates in Europe and America over the past several centuries. To put these numbers in perspective, however, note that the homicide rate in New Orleans today is 52 per 100,000 and in Detroit it’s 40 per 100,000 so even with a lower average there is lots of variation. Brazil today is around 22 per 100,000 not too far from America in the 19th century. The homicide rate in El Salvador is 71 per 100,000, in Jamaica (!) 60 per 100,000 and in Honduras 67 per 100,000 — all higher than fifteenth century Europe. Thus, the past was a more violent place but not so violent as to be unknown to the present.
Claude Fisher said this:
The drop in violent crime in the U.S. after about 1850 was not as fast or as consistent as it was in Western Europe. That is when the striking violence gap between the U.S. and Europe opened up. The graph also shows that progress was hardly uniform, as there were many upswings of violence. Spurts often coincide with wars and the aftermaths of war – notably having many demobilized soldiers, trained and armed fighters, roaming the land.
I have a few thoughts about the data that went into this research.
1) Can we estimate homicide rates in pre-1492 America with any confidence? If not, can we estimate the rate in inland locations away from the Euro-American court system (e.g., Colorado in 1800) at later dates? Were deaths among Blacks and American Indians recorded as homicides in the 19th century?
2) What is the definition of “homicide”? Does it include politicized violence? If so, how overtly political does the violence have to be? Would deaths at the Battle of Gettsyburg count? Probably not? But what low-level, neighbour-on-neighbour violence during the Civil War? What about bank robberies by Jesse James, who regarded himself as the last Confederate? There is a whole spectrum of politicized violence ranging from organized warfare to lynchings and modern day cop-killings that might be listed as homicide.
The Past Speaks 