In Mexico today, the body count in the drug wars, directed by rich people, is greater than all other violence combined.
Few rich people directing and many not so rich people doing the actual killing. Poor men more easily become involved in the drug trade because for most of them it is the easiest way to leave poverty. Some of them may become really rich afterwards and be unlikely to change their successful strategy, but that’s besides the point. Gangsters may be rich or poor, but very few rich people join organised crime in the first place.
Then again, there are more not-so-rich people than rich people. To weigh the ″socio-economic inequality” argument it needs to be shown how criminality correlates with wealth.
(Note that ‘socio-economic inequality’ is a rather imprecise term here—it seems that what is meant is something like ‘poverty induces crime’)
It can be easily shown how criminality correlates with inequality directly. Let’s for example compare the homicide rates (per 100 thousand inhabitatnts per year) in 15 most equal and 15 most inequal countries in the world (measured by Gini index):
Most equal (Gini between 24.7 and 29.2)
Denmark 1.0
Japan 1.0
Sweden 0.89
Czech Rep. 1.9
Norway 0.60
Slovakia 1.7
Bosnia 1.8
Finland 2.5
Hungary 1.4
Ukraine 5.4
Germany 0.86
Slovenia 0.55
Croatia 1.7
Austria 0.55
Bulgaria 2.3
Most inequal (Gini between 74.3 and 53.8)
Namibia 18
Lesotho 37
Sierra Leone 2.6
Central African Rep. 30
Botswana 12
Bolivia 11
Haiti 22
Colombia 35
Paraguay 12
South Africa 34
Brazil 22
Panama 13
Guatemala 52
Chile 1.7
Honduras 67
The data are fromWikipedia. There may be some caveats (e.g. some countries include attempted murders in the count while others don’t), but the overall correlation is easily visible.
In rich countries, there are strong correlations between income inequality and imprisonment rates (graph), and between income inequality and homicide rates (graph). As for selection bias, the authors of the graphs took the 50 richest countries over population 3 million for which data was available. Data sources here.
Few rich people directing and many not so rich people doing the actual killing. Poor men more easily become involved in the drug trade because for most of them it is the easiest way to leave poverty. Some of them may become really rich afterwards and be unlikely to change their successful strategy, but that’s besides the point. Gangsters may be rich or poor, but very few rich people join organised crime in the first place.
Then again, there are more not-so-rich people than rich people. To weigh the ″socio-economic inequality” argument it needs to be shown how criminality correlates with wealth.
(Note that ‘socio-economic inequality’ is a rather imprecise term here—it seems that what is meant is something like ‘poverty induces crime’)
It can be easily shown how criminality correlates with inequality directly. Let’s for example compare the homicide rates (per 100 thousand inhabitatnts per year) in 15 most equal and 15 most inequal countries in the world (measured by Gini index):
Most equal (Gini between 24.7 and 29.2)
Denmark 1.0
Japan 1.0
Sweden 0.89
Czech Rep. 1.9
Norway 0.60
Slovakia 1.7
Bosnia 1.8
Finland 2.5
Hungary 1.4
Ukraine 5.4
Germany 0.86
Slovenia 0.55
Croatia 1.7
Austria 0.55
Bulgaria 2.3
Most inequal (Gini between 74.3 and 53.8)
Namibia 18
Lesotho 37
Sierra Leone 2.6
Central African Rep. 30
Botswana 12
Bolivia 11
Haiti 22
Colombia 35
Paraguay 12
South Africa 34
Brazil 22
Panama 13
Guatemala 52
Chile 1.7
Honduras 67
The data are from Wikipedia. There may be some caveats (e.g. some countries include attempted murders in the count while others don’t), but the overall correlation is easily visible.
In rich countries, there are strong correlations between income inequality and imprisonment rates (graph), and between income inequality and homicide rates (graph). As for selection bias, the authors of the graphs took the 50 richest countries over population 3 million for which data was available. Data sources here.