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Originally Posted by JohnKSa
However, I'm a little skeptical about the idea that Caracas is the sole reason for Venezuela's high overall murder rate given that it's not just Caracas that has a high murder rate. In fact, 4 out of the top 10 most violent cities in the world and 7 out of the top 50, are in Venezuela.
It makes perfect sense that the urban areas have more violent crime, but the idea that there's just one urban area in Venezuela that's giving the wrong picture overall doesn't seem to match with the facts.
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Oops. Went gung-ho on Caracas, and didn't even look at the rest of the top 50. Sorry.
However, that actually proves my point.
Let me see if I can explain myself better with numbers, being that my performance with words is being kinda poor...
Venezuela has a population of 31,586,179, and a murder rate of 57.15 out of 100,000. That means 18,052 people get murdered every year.
Now:
Caracas has 3,305,204 @ 130.35 murder rate, or 4309 murdered per year.
Maturin (#6) has 592,574 @ 82.84, or 491 murdered per year.
Ciudad Guayana (#8) has 877,547 @ 82.84, or 727 murdered per year.
Valencia (#9) has 1,560,586 @ 72.02, or 1124 murdered per year.
Barquisimeto (#16) has 1,322,068 @ 59.38, or 785 murdered per year.
Cumana (#17) has 488,507 @ 59.31, or 290 murdered per year.
Barcelona (#29) has 846,353 @46.86, or 397 murdered per year.
That means, for those 7 cities, a total of 8,992,839 people, out of which 8123 people get murdered yearly.
That, in turn, means the rest of the country has 22,593,340 people, out of which 9929 people get murdered a year, which gives a murder rate (outside those 7 cities) of 43.94, which would put the "rest of Venezuela", between the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Jamaica.Now, you can argue that's still very high, and it is, but there's a big difference between 57 and 44.
Either way, I said before that murder rate is not the right criteria to use for judging how dangerous a country is. One of the reasons is because you gotta look at the nature of those killings.
Sure, a stray bullet will kill you just as dead in Caracas as in Bern. However, it's stilll gonna be a lot more dangerous for you to go visit Yemen (in the middle of a civil war) than Norway.
Now, in the case of Venezuela, most of the murders are politics or drugs (as in drug trafficking) related . Of course, that doesn't mean you'll be "safe", but I'd argue you'd be much safer there than in Buenos Aires, the city where I live, which doesn't show in the "Top 50", yet it's overrun by criminals, while the police and justice departments do nothing.
I can actually guarantee you, without a shadow of a doubt, that if you flash a $100 bill in public, almost anywhere in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, you
will get mugged, and probably killed in the process. Yet Buenos Aires is not in the "Top 50", and Argentina is #83 and has a 6.53 murder rate.
My point in all this (before somebody asks
) is that you can't know if a country is "dangerous" just looking at some numbers.
Back in 2000, when I was getting ready to emigrate to the US, lots of people (and I mean LOTS of people) gave me plenty of reasons why I should NOT go there. From "they will make you feel unwelcome", to "the cops will use you as a scapegoat, when they can't solve a crime", or "it's a country full of junkies, dealing dope and killing each other in every corner", I heard it all. So, when I landed in Miami, I was beyond terrified.
Took me a couple of days to realize maybe the US wasn't as they said. Today, the 13 years I lived there count as the happiest years of my life, and I wouldn't hesitate for a second, if I had the slightest chance to go back.
So, you shouldn't judge a country for a number, or an opinion. Sometimes, the only way to know something is, well... knowing it.