what are the primary reasons the U.S. crime rate is very high in global context?

Question

What steps would you recommend to try to reduce this rate?

Answer 1

we have a larger population. so 10,000 crimes is a smaller percent in our country than in another country.


to reduce? i dont know, that hard. more enforcement wouldnt necessarily reduce crime. and education can only do so much.

i think if everyone had a job there would be less need for crime. so maybe improving unemployment rates might lower crime?

Answer 2

The two biggest reasons are:
1. We actually report the vast majority of crimes in this country. Many countries with less freedom and government controlled media, simply don't report legitimate numbers.
2. In countries where bribery and corruption are standard procedure, crime rates don't include much of what we consider crime.

Answer 3

It's not. For the amount of freedoms and the size of the country America is a very safe place. Crime statistics are misleading and they don't account for many variables.

Illegal drugs are a major source of crime. They always will be. Making drugs harder to get will reduce crime but as long as demand is high drugs will find their way into the country.

Answer 4

U.S. crime rate is alot better than many other places. Our problem is that our law-makers are not passing enough legislation which punishes criminals. Actually, because of lawsuits and ignorant judges, our system in many cases works more to protect criminals.
In many middle-eastern countries for example, stiff penalties are enforced for breaking the laws like stealing- if you are convicted, they might "remove" a hand.
In Japan, drug dealers are sentenced to life in prison. No parole. No exceptions.

Our society does a great job of making people feel that they are not responsible for their own actions/choices.

Answer 5

Thomas Jefferson clearly understood that you can have a nice, neat, tidy, orderly society, or you can have a free society. But it is very difficult to have a society that is both orderly and free. In a letter to James Madison, he wrote, "A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both and deserves neither." We have a serious problem with law and order in the United States and the cost to American society is enormous. Just fighting the "drug war" costs us tens of billions of dollars each year. The crimes that addicts commit costs conservatively more than a hundred billion dollars each year. Each year, the toll gets worse, each year the enforcement measures become more and more stringent. The fastest growing industry in America is prison construction. We incarcerate a larger percentage of our population than any other nation in the world, yet it has failed to make us feel more secure. And we surrender more of our freedom of movement, our right to be secure in our possessions, and more and more of our personal privacy with each attempt to enforce these "protections." As Jefferson so accurately predicted, the problem doesn't get better, it gets worse. The conservative solution of surrendering freedom to secure order has clearly not worked. It is because, as Jefferson understood so well, people don't obey the law because they fear it so much as because they respect it. And when they cease to respect it, law and order breaks down. We have been repressed, both physically and psychologically. Passing laws because its easier than doing the heavy lifting of dealing with a problem, is repression. It doesn't work, and it has led to a disrespect for the legal system that was created to deal with problems that didn't get solved. So increasingly repressive laws won't solve a law and order problem. It only makes it worse. It encourages a disrespect both for the law and for the agents of the law. It fosters radicalism in politics and unrest among the disadvantaged, the disenchanted and the disregarded. Other world countries have less crime because they have a strong committment to a sound educational policy, based on truth and reason, not on political propaganda or religious dogma. There has to be a firm commitment to egalitarian values, to respect for and help for the disadvantaged, not just a meanspirited social Darwinism, leaving the disadvantaged to their own devices. When an individual has a solid, sound education, understands himself and his place in the world, he has a much-improved self concept. If a person sees himself as being a law-abiding person, because it is good for himself as well as society, he conducts himself accordingly. When he is presented with opportunities to lift himself out of poverty, and can see a way out, he will take it. The problem is that we don't have an educational system in this country worthy of the name. And developing opportunities for the disenfranchised and the dispossessed requires sacrifices on the part of the advantaged. It means they have to give of their means and their power. Capitalists and conservatives are not much inclined to do that. They call it "social engineering," "socialism" or "communism." Of course other nations long ago came to understand the power and utility of "social engineering," but conservatives won't look beyond the American borders. They naively think that social engineering doesn't work (while actually proposing to engage in it themselves - while not calling it that). The only alternative is to "lock 'em up."

Answer 6

Feedom. We have more freedoms than most countries that includes freedom to commit crimes. Dictatorships have the lowest crime rates. Thats what happens when you kill people for jaywalking.

Answer 7

This is a great question, and one that intrigued me for quite some time.

Answer 8

Poverty,pay better wages,so people can make ends meet.

Answer 9

Well, it depends..