New Health Rankings: Of 17 Nations, U.S. Is Dead Last

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Yes, that's pretty much it

Assault (causing serious bodily injury) is worst, of all OECD countries, in Scotland - 1487 per 100,000 population, and 3rd worst in England and Wales (730) (the UK divides up its crime statistics). In the USA it's 262. Intentional homicide is 5.0 in the USA, 1.6 in Scotland, and 1.1 in England and Wales.

http://www.civitas.org.uk/crime/crime_stats_oecdjan2012.pdf

Mind you, according to that table, the assault rate in Poland is just 2 per 100,000 population, which I find a little unbelievable. According to the UN source table at http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/CTS12_Assault.xls , the Polish rate dropped from between 75.9 and 77.6 from 2003-2006 to between 1.4 and 1.6 from 2007-2010, which looks like a redefinition of 'assault', to me. So it's possible there have always been differences in what counts as 'serious' between countries. At least homicide has a far clearer definition. It's also taken from reported cases - again, there may be differences between countries about how much people report assaults to police (eg if you're in a drunken fight, you might not report it).