Hacker News Reader

Comment by tomjen3 | Hacker News Reader

Yet almost every weekend somebody is getting shot in Malmø, in one area of the city the police gets rocks thrown at them by organized groups of youth when they show up.

View on HN

According to this Infowars article [1] (not the most unbiased source, but if they fudge their numbers I would expect them to exagerate) there were 11 murders in Malmø in 2016. For a city of almost 300,000 people that is about 3.7 murders per 100,000 people. As a point of reference, in 2016, NYC had a homicide rate of 3.91, LA 7.25, Chicago 28.0 per 100,000 [2]. Those are big cities, so one would expect the crime rate to be higher.

Anyway, your statement that almost every weekend somebody is shot in Malmø was incorrect for 2016.

[1] http://www.infowars.com/culturally-enriched-malmo-sweden-is-...

[2] http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/nyc-homicide-stats-comp...

Chicago 28.0 per 100,000

That's the same rate as Columbia.

It is better to compare the murder rate in Malmö to that in Copenhagen, the 'city across the bridge' in Denmark, as both used to share the same "Scandinavian" culture. For those who do not know, Copenhagen is about three times the size of Malmö, the two cities are connected together by a bridge over the 'Öresund' (called the 'Öresund bridge'). Copenhagen has a much lower crime rate than Malmö and - related - a much lower murder rate. The numbers are [1 - Swedish article]:

   City       Murder rate

   Malmö      3.4
   Paris      1.8
   London     1.3
   Copenhagen 1.1
   Berlin     1.0

The comparison with Chicago is clearly off, but that goes for more or less all of Europe. The highest murder rate in Europe is to be found in Tirana, the capital of Albania, with 6.7 murders per 100.000. The highest in the world seems to be found in Caracas, Venezuela, at 120 murders per 100.000.

So Malmö is no Chicago and Europe is no United States of America. But, also, Malmö is no Scandinavia.

Thanks for the extra statistics. Can you add a link to the article? It seems to be missing...

Yes, I forgot the add the link - that's what you get when you reply to stuff while waiting for the welder to cool down so I can use it again... Here it is:

[1] http://www.friatider.se/malm-farligast-i-norden

> London 1.3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_London

>> London is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world. In 2007 there were over 300 languages spoken in it and more than 50 non-indigenous communities with a population of more than 10,000.[1]

>> At the 2011 census London had a population of 8,173,941. Of this number, 44.9% were White British. 37% of the population were born outside the UK, including 24.5% born outside of Europe.[2]

Correct, and this is linked to organized crime. A small group that have gotten hold of lots of weapons. It's a problem, but it's a problem caused by a few - which means, it should be possible to solve it with the right approach and sufficient police resources - which is the big issue at the moment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grenade_attacks_in_Swe...

It's similar to the 'build vs maintain' debate we have in software. The article is about how great it was to build this up, but it's going to be someone else doing the hard work of maintaining the 'debt'.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com