Some debate below about the various parameters which shape social pathologies. One of facts which we are well aware of is that the United States has a lot of homicide compared to other developed countries. But another fact which is also well known is that a disproportionate number of these murders are committed by racial & ethnic minorities, as well as by particular subcultures (e.g., Southerners vs. New Englanders). So I took the state-by-state homicide rate and compared them to the international data for selection nations. Results below the fold....
I would be surprised by Finland...
State
Homicide/100,000
NationHomicide/100,000
Japan0.5
Hong Kong0.55
Greece0.76
Switzerland0.92
Ireland0.95
Norway1.07
Denmark1.07
New Zealand1.12
Netherlands1.12
Germany1.16
Spain1.22
Italy1.28
New Hampshire1.4
North Dakota1.4
Maine1.4
UK1.41
Canada1.49
Australia1.5
Iowa1.6
Iceland1.68
Czech Republic1.7
France1.73
Slovenia1.79
Utah1.9
South Korea1.96
Hungary2.05
Delaware2
Idaho2.2
Minnesota2.2
Wyoming2.2
South Dakota2.3
Nebraska2.3
Portugal2.34
Rhode Island2.4
Oregon2.5
Connecticut2.6
Massachusetts2.6
Vermont2.6
Hawaii2.6
Wisconsin2.8
Finland2.83
Washington3.1
Montana3.2
Yemen3.36
India3.44
West Virginia3.7
United States4.28
Colorado4.4
Bulgaria4.46
Kansas4.5
New Jersey4.5
Ohio4.5
New York4.6
Indiana5.1
Georgia5.11
Virginia5.2
Pennsylvania5.2
Oklahoma5.3
Florida5.4
Alabama5.6
Alaska5.6
Poland5.63
Kentucky5.7
Tennessee5.9
Illinois6.1
Texas6.1
Missouri6.2
North Carolina6.2
Arkansas6.4
Michigan6.4
California6.7
Georgia6.9
South Carolina6.9
Arizona7.2
Nevada7.4
Mississippi7.8
Moldova7.81
New Mexico8.9
Maryland9.4Ukraine9.4
Belarus9.83
Lithuania10.29
Latvia10.39
Estonia10.73
Louisiana12.7
Mexico13.02
Russia20.15
District of Columbia35.8
but then, I know that they're crazy!!!
In any case, somewhat less than half perpetrators of homicide are white. Assuming that 3/4 of the 45% of homicide perpetrators who are white are not minorities (i.e., Hispanic/Latino), and renormalize the rate by the smaller population (0.70 of Americans are non-Hispanic whites), you can crank down the rate of homicide for this demo to 2.06 or so. That's basically in the high range for a European country. I suspect that this rough figure is correct since New Hamphsire is almost totally non-Hispanic white & from the least "rowdy" of the four Anglo-Saxon folkways which settled this nation, and it is somewhat below the projected homicide rate for non-Hispanic whites overall (it seems likely that whites from the American South & West are more violent than those from New England or the Upper Midwest judging by higher imprisonment rates).
