Does the U.S. have less violent crime than Germany....a look at some numbers....

[2aguy]

This is an interesting look at the crime rates of Germany compared to the U.S.....and Germany comes out the loser.....are these numbers accurate?


German Vs US Crime Rate Extrano s Alley a gun blog

Someone came by searching for “germany vs us crime.’

The official BundesKriminalAmt report are at this link in English.(pdf)

Before I begin, let me remind the reader that the estimated population of the United States was 316,128,839 while the estimated population of Germany was 80,716,000 at the end of the period these numbers cover.

Therefore it will take 3.179 times as many comparable rimes in the US totals to equal Germany’s crime rate. Or 0.3146 times the US rate to match Germany’s crime rates for those converting from US to German rates. (click on graphics for a clearer view)

There are other problems as well, including habitual failure to investigate or report crimes committed against Roma, North Africans, Middle Easterners, and those from Eastern Europe. I have gone into that problem in detail elsewhere in the Ally, a search for Rom or Roma will turn up many references. That said…

Briefly excerpting a table listing violent crime rates from the BKA crime report linked abive:

For overall crime, 9,795,658 crimes were reported to the FBI, for a rate of 3,098.6 per 100,000 population.

Across the pond, Germany reported 5,961,662 crimes reported by the police, for a rate of 7,385 per 100,000 population.

The United States reported 784,124 “aggravated assaults,” for a rate of 229.1 per 100,000.


Germany reported 506,616 crimes equivalent to “aggravated assault,” a crime with the use or display of a weapon, for a rate of 627.7 per 100,000 population.

The United States reported 345,031 robberies, for a rate of 109.1 per 100,000 population.

Germany reported 47,234 robberies for a rate of 58.5 per 100,000.

I will not include rape, both because of the differing definition of the crime, and the fact that the reporting rate is much lower in Germany, as they are across Europe.

Turning to homicide, the BKA reported 2,122 murders and manslaughter’s, fir a rate if 2.62 per 100,000 population.

The United States homicide and manslaughter, plus self defense and police killings, total was 14,196 for a raw rate of 4.5 per 100,000. The demographically adjusted rate for the United States, using Wikipedia’s estimate of Germany’s population ratios, was 2.0 in 2012, and should be close to 1.9 per 100,000 for 2014.

So which nation has the lower crime rate? The United States, for both overall crime and violent crime.