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I was raped once, long ago. So I have read quite a great deal on the subject, among other things that to my mind are pertinent but not worth going into here.

Without knowing anything more about the two countries than what you have said, my assumption would be that rape is much more underreported in Singapore rather than being less common. The definition of rape hinges on the detail of consent. An awful lot of people are raped in a non-violent way by people they know. This often occurs after consuming alcohol or other drugs. For example, date rape on college campuses (U.S.) almost always involves alcohol. In such cases, the victims may feel confused as to whether or not it really was rape. There is also the detail that people will cover up crimes if they don't agree with the law or they feel that the punishment is excessive for the crime involved. Victims also will cover up that they were raped and not report it in order to protect their own reputation. The victims of rape often feel ashamed, are often accused of "asking for it" based on how they were dressed, etc.

What you describe (as punishment for even minor crimes in Singapore) is basically psychological and physical torture. I seriously doubt that a culture that officially embraces that is one where people all get along so beautifully that rape has practically gone extinct. An atmosphere of fear and loathing is highly unlikely to foster some sort of Utopian outcome.

Thanks for sharing. I think you're likely right about differences in measurement between the two countries.

That said - Singapore still has lower murder rates than Norway (something I assume is more easily measured). This could be cultural and not due to the justice system, but I think it's still worth pointing out that the super-harsh method happens in the developed world today, whereas the article just talked about the hotel/education Norwegian method.

From what I have read, investment in family, children and education goes a lot further to reduce crime than harsher prison sentences and the like. I have seen it said that every dollar spent on preschool saves multiple dollars years down the road on prisons.

The two cultures are undoubtedly different in many different metrics. It is incredibly hard to compare two different cultures in a way that yields specific meaningful conclusions for a single metric. Each difference has multiple different implications. Teasing apart the complex web of differences is vastly harder than most comments in internet discussion seem to appreciate.

Best.

> Norway and Singapore each have ~5M people. Singapore has 130 rapes a year, Norway has 1,000. How do you justify leaving the Norway justice system in place to the additional 800 rape victims in Norway, when a better system for reducing crime has been invented?

I feel obligated to point out that you are assuming that the rate of reporting (and being believed by the authorities making these statistics!) (EDIT: as well as the strictness of the legal definition thereof) is equal in both countries. I have my doubts about that.

Yes, I tried to point that out in my [5] above. But Singapore seems better in basically all crime metrics, including murder and crimes that are perhaps better defined and reported.

Still leaves questions as to how much is cultural and how much is because of the justice system. But it's tough for me to imagine a world where caning doesn't decrease the amount of graffiti, auto thefts, bank robberies, etc.

-How many would start doing crimes of opportunity (graffiti, auto thefts, bank robberies, etc) because caning was implemented? (an absurd question)

-How many who currently do those crimes would not do those crimes if there is the possibility of significant unwanted punishment?

The fact that recidivism is so high suggests this is not a problem of catching and sentencing criminals (recidivism is only those who are caught/charged!). This is a problem of the punishment not being enough to deter the actions.

Scandinavian countries have a wide range of definitions of rape (which is a good thing). That means a lot of situations that are not classified as rape in other countries are included.

In 2015, 97 of the rapes in Norway were classified as "assault rapes". That means that someone used violence/force, drugs or threats to rape her (or him).

One example taken from Singapore is that if a woman is penetrated anally it is not classified as rape, but sexual assault.

Another example taken from Singapore is that a married man can by definition not commit rape against his wife unless they have been living apart. Marital status does not give any protection in Scandinavia when someone says no.

Seeing how the definition of rape in Singapore is so different than in Scandinavia makes me think we can't compare the numbers without giving proper context.

Perhaps it's also a cultural difference? Notice how Japan has the same rate of homicides as Singapore? Perhaps it's a cultural thing more so than a policy thing working out in Asia.

Comparing countries with corporal punishment with their intentional homicide rate leads to no conclusion.

The United States have tried harsher punishments for decades now, and it's not working out. Perhaps a different method is devised?

Besides, you may approve of legal corporal punishment, but I am not sure everyone in the West does.

I think the cultural difference piece is hard to judge, but it's very difficult for me (a mostly uninformed reader) to figure that piece out. I think no matter how you try and get the stats, that piece will remain.

I think my main takeaway is that the US has a pretty bad system currently. Our prisons do seem like breeding grounds for criminals, and our recidivism rate is high. One way to end recidivism is potentially with education. Another way to reduce the problem of recidivism is by locking a repeat offender up for life[1].

I'm not sure the answer, but clearly there's room for improvement in the US system.

Our crime statistics are just so much worse in the US, it seems like we need radical, generational changes to try and make our crime rates more like similar European countries.

More Chicagoans have been killed in gun violence since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq than US soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.[2]

In the top 50 world cities by murder rate, 46/50 are in countries that you might expect (Brazil, Mexico, Honduras, etc)[3]. But 4 are in one of the richest countries in the world, with St. Louis premiering at #14. A 20-30% drop by making our prisons universities is not enough to make these numbers tolerable to me. We need massive change (not just with criminal justice... obviously education, culture, economics all play a part).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law

[2]https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2016/09/08/homici...

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate

> Our crime statistics are just so much worse in the US, it seems like we need radical, generational changes to try and make our crime rates more like similar European countries.

This requires a choice - a commitment to actually do what's necessary to reduce violence, by recognising and fixing the systemic factors. Glasgow attempted this recently with great success: http://www.actiononviolence.org.uk/about-us

Glasgow now has 5.1 homicides per 100,000 people, compared to the worst rate in the US (St. Louis, 59.3 homicides per 100,000 people).

Some of the techniques were in fact imported from the US:

> "In tackling gang crime the unit imported a successful anti-gang violence initiative spearheaded in Boston in the 1990s. The Community Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV) programme broke up Glasgow's long established gangs by offering members an alternative to the violent lives they were living . The VRU also successfully lobbied for increases in maximum sentences for carrying knives."

I think one has to include that factor in a thorough analysis of this issue. The US has a much higher murder rate than other developed countries; 3.9 murders per year per 100k population, compared to 0.6/100k in Norway, 0.3/100k in Singapore, and around 1/100k in the major EU countries [1].

I think it's entirely possible that different punishment regimes are effective at different levels of violence in the population. But I don't know that there is a good way of quantifying that point, since we're talking about interventions at the state level. Or it could be that once your society gets the murder rate down to < 1/100k, something else has changed in your society and it doesn't matter how you punish your criminals.

Certainly there's something different about the US; a good analysis here [2], though that is specifically on the mind-killer subject of gun violence. Pinker's "The better angels of our nature" has some interesting ideas on this subject too.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... [2]: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/06/guns-and-states/

Right. It seems awfully silly to show a chart of "prisoners per 100k people" without a chart of "violent crimes per 100,000 people".

Sure, the US has 10x the incarceration rate of Norway, but we also have 6.5x the murder rate.

You can say our prisons aren't effective at reducing crime, but when a country has way more crime, you'd expect them to have way more prisoners. It's not an argument of "over-incarceration" (as is often heard).

It can be, to the extent that other policy differences are making an impact on the rates (instead of the hand of god or whatever).

If you increased the number of murderers in Norway by 6.5x, you would not increase the number of prisoners in Norway by 6.5x.

You would, if other crimes are caused by the same factors you used to increase murders -- lead supplements, immigration, or encouraging Kristallnachts.

You state that as obvious, but I'm not sure -- that is an interesting question that bears some examination.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_correlations_of_cr... doesn't seem to answer directly, but does talk about some genetic and environmental causes for violent crime.

It seems likely that there are some factors contributing to the US's higher murder rate that would also be expected to spill over into the violent crime rate. I'd like to dig into whether the US has higher non-violent crime rates than other countries as well, but can't find any good summaries right now.

So I think I'd expect to see a lot more violent crime if you increased the murder rate by 6.5x, and that might get you close to 6.5x the prison population depending on the breakdown of the difference in crime rates. But having said that, it seems likely that there are a few factors contributing to the incarceration rate, not just the higher base rate of violent crime.