
Why is violent crime so rare in Iceland? - bsg75
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22288564
======
visarga
My insight: it's the degree of integration of society. No disenfranchised
sections.

Besides Iceland, two other countries stand up: Japan an Switzerland. In the
former, not even police or yakuza bear fire arms, things are solved mainly on
reputation. In the latter, every citizen has to know how to operate a firearm,
on account of not having an army.

So it's not the availability or lack of thereof of guns. It's the "social
tension" (what exists between people) that binds people together. A society of
strangers and cvasi-anonymous people leads to higher violence. When people are
separated, they don't prevent each other from falling into a life of crime.

A society where whole swaths of people are in poverty believing they have no
chance to succeed leads to the worst cases of violence. Even the slight idea
that there is a path from poverty to success, even if it is an illusion, keeps
the violence down.

But when people are convinced that the system is stacked against them no
matter what they do, then they dissociate from the large society, form a new
attitude - that they don't need to play by the rules, they don't need to have
compassion, because the rich have all the power and resources anyway and they
actively block the poor from raising up. That's basically whet the shit hits
the fan.

Remember the French arab revolt from a few years back, in Paris? Same thing.
Arabs emigrated in France after WWII for work. They remained in France and had
children. Now french people don't need them any more, but the kids are born in
France, they have no idea of the countries their parents came from. They don't
want to leave, but they are not welcome in France either. They are without a
place of their own. Thus, feeling of racial discrimination and violent
protest.

~~~
snogglethorpe
Regular Japanese police do carry firearms.

~~~
visarga
Even the guys who stay at the local booth in the corner of the street?

~~~
snogglethorpe
Yes.

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ellyagg
Last year, New Hampshire's murder rate was 1.3. Since 1996, like Iceland, its
murder rate has never gone above 1.8. New Hampshire is four times as big as
Iceland. Why is violent crime so rare in New Hampshire?

[[http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-
and-...](http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state)]

Not that New Hampshire is unique. There are other states larger than Iceland
that have similarly low murder rates.

~~~
dm2
Could the weather have anything to do with it?

Could also be partly the lack of tourists or type of tourists, compared to
warmer areas.

~~~
kyllo
Boston is less than 2 hours' drive from New Hampshire and has plenty of
violence.

I think New Hampshire's cities are small and just don't really have ghettos
the way most large American cities do. The violence happens in bigger cities
that are pretty nearby, but happen to be outside NH's borders. Southern NH is
kind of like an extended suburb of Boston.

~~~
zequel
Mass has very little gun violence, in fact, ~ 3.1 per 100k. "Plenty of
violence" isn't a helpful statement.

~~~
kyllo
OK, so now we get to play "compared to what?"

OP is about murder rate, not gun violence rate.

(2011): National rate: 4.7 Northeast rate: 3.9 MA rate: 2.8 NH rate: 1.3

MA's rate is lower than the national average and lower than the Northeast
regional average, but more than double than NH's average.

My argument is that NH has a particularly low murder rate because it doesn't
really have any big cities--the populated areas are mostly suburban. High
murder rates correlate with high population density (and poverty). If the
nearby metropolis of Boston were inside NH's borders, then I think NH would
have the higher murder rate. Do you disagree with that assessment?

------
schoper
Biology. Icelanders in the U.S. don't murder people very often either. Nordics
make good neighbors.

Then again, if you've read the Icelandic Sagas, you'll find that they used to
be bloodthirsty enough in pre-modernity. Culture matters too. Just not as much
(in the range of societies that exist in the first world today).

~~~
tinco
I do not believe that there exists any evidence that there is a biologic
difference between Icelandic or Nordic people in general and other groups of
humans that correlates strong enough to explain the crime rate statistics of
Iceland.

Also, the fact that you mention 'nordics make good neighbors' in the same
comment as acknowledging that nordics raped and pillaged my people for
hundreds of years.. (edit: sorry I'm a bit tired I had some insulting line
here I hope no one read)

culture matters too..

------
tzs
I recall several news stories around a month ago about the Icelandic
government creating a smartphone app that lets Icelanders check to see if the
person they are dating is a relative. Apparently the small population and low
immigration rate means that a given random pair of Icelanders are likely to be
more closely related than a given random pair of people from most other
countries.

I wonder if the increased risk that your victim might be a relative might have
some deterrent effect?

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wtbob
My suspicion is that it's due to a number of factors. Economic equality (real
or perceived) is probably one thing; cultural homogeneity is probably another;
if I infer correctly from the article that Icelanders see dealing with crime
as a matter for all citizens, not just agents of the state, then that probably
is as well.

------
anuraj
The homicide rate is not too low. For example, my state Kerala which has the
highest recorded crime rate (read mostly petty) in India, has a homicide rate
of 1.09 - Much less than Iceland even with 100x population.

~~~
jsnk
Iceland's homicide rate is one of the world's lowest, and it has lower
homicide rate than India by 35 times.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country)

~~~
anuraj
I told you about the Homicide rate of Kerala, an Indian state which has 100x
population of Iceland. 365 (470 including culpable homicides not amounting to
murder) homicides in 2011 with 33.4 million population.So Iceland is nothing
exceptional here. <http://www.keralapolice.org/newsite/crimein_kerala.html>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala>

~~~
mercurial
You seem to be claiming Kerala as the norm rather than an outlier. You're
certainly welcome to compare crime rates between the two and/or suggest
explanations/compare living conditions, but saying that very low crime rate is
the norm is simply false [1]

1: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_rate>

~~~
anuraj
No - I said Kerala has a high crime rate - but a relatively low homicide rate.
Kerala is definitely an outlier in many respects in India. What I am trying to
hint is it is not exceptional to have low homicide rates - there are several
parts of the world where it is the norm. It may be better to consider high
homicide rates in some developed, high HDI regions as an anomaly and analyze
the reasons.

------
mwctahoe
I feel the fact that they named the armed cops the Viking Squad is being
overlooked here. Viking Squad aint nuthing ta fuck wit.

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Muzza
This is not the answer HN is looking for, but Iceland is safe because it's
full of Icelanders. England was safe when it was full of Englishmen. Not
anymore. Sweden was safe when it was full of Swedes. Not anymore. Etc.

~~~
saraid216
This is actually my intuition, too: most of the Scandinavian countries'
successes are better attributed to racial homogeneity than to actually being
institutionally sounder.

I can't prove that, though; there have been discussions before about
immigration similarities, but nothing that I found convincing enough to
remember.

~~~
onemorepassword
Seriously, I fucking hate this uninformed American crap, like Europe is some
mythical white people planet?

"Racial homogeneity" my ass, Scandinavia or the rest of Europa isn't living in
the middle ages anymore. It's insulting and borderline racist nonsense.

~~~
mercurial
Immigration is pretty low in Scandinavia. Coming from Paris, it's quite
bizarre to visit Copenhagen or Árhus and wonder what happened to the non-white
people.

~~~
rdl
There are actually a lot of refugees/immigrants in the
Norway/Sweden/Denmark/Netherlands from Islamic countries, now. And, those
communities tend to commit a disproportionate number of crimes, although this
could be for a variety of reasons -- poverty before moving, poverty after
moving, culture, age, ... (Biology seems like the least likely, especially
given how bloodthirsty the vikings were only 50 generations ago)

