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A comment on Barack Obama: Why we must rethink solitary confinement. Parent comment

Re:Barack Obama: Why we must rethink solitary confinement by thenomad on Tuesday January 26, 2016 @06:03AM (#10972823)
Having a quick look at the crime statistics, France doesn't seem to be a hotbed of crime and violence at the moment.

According to what I could dig up from Google, it's had a homicide rate of 1.2 per 100,000 people and a serious assault rate of 299 per 100,000 people over the last couple of years.

Those are respectively slightly higher (1.2 vs 1.0) and significantly lower (400 vs 299, although data collection methodologies may be different) than the UK where I live, which is generally considered to be a reasonably safe country crime-wise.

(Didn't really have time to dig into other crime categories - would be interested to hear if they buck the trend.)

Not claiming your statement isn't true, but unless I'm misreading the statistics the effect doesn't seem to be a massive crime wave.

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Re:Barack Obama: Why we must rethink solitary confinement by cm2187 on Tuesday January 26, 2016 @06:12AM (#10972842)
The problem is not homicides which have been consistently decreasing over the years. The problem is rather assaults, theft, cars burnt, burglaries, etc. Many of which do not even get reported anymore. For that reason the official statistics are not a good indicator. Alternative indicators that rely on surveys are rather used to measure the evolution.
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Re:Barack Obama: Why we must rethink solitary confinement by ygra on Tuesday January 26, 2016 @12:01PM (#10974370)
Wouldn't you have to report them to get reimbursed by your insurance?
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Re:Barack Obama: Why we must rethink solitary confinement by cm2187 on Tuesday January 26, 2016 @02:48PM (#10975478)
That's right, but only if what was stolen was insured and worth doing the paperwork. So cars burnt are usually fairly reliable (but the gvt often tries to publish the statistics with long delays to hide the extent of a violent episode). Burglaries a bit less, depending on the damage to the property and what was stolen. But someone stealing your mobile phone or punching you in the face because you looked at them the wrong way, not so much. In fact most of the time the police tries to discourage people from filling a complaint, as it creeps up their crime statistics, and worse than that, their unsolved crime statistics.
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