Hacker News Reader

Afaik, Americans do not commit 6 times more crime then Europeans.

Did you bother actually looking up the data? Because intentional homicide in the US is indeed more than 6x greater than it is in places like Austria and Switzerland.

There is no country in western Europe with anywhere near the violent crime rate as the US.

Yes I did. US has 3 times more murder then average EU. That is not the same as 6 times more. And some of surplus is one person killing more people, so you then have one person being in prison instead of multiple.

And murder clearance rates are low anyway, so that on itself can't be reason for disparity.

Switzerland has super low murders.

I am inclined to believe that criminal inclination is a human universal. I am also inclined to believe that the American system catches and punishes more criminals (as a percentage) than the European systems. But some disparity does seem to exist.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com