How effective are our ‘better angels’? Assessing country-level declines in homicide since 1950

Abstract

Pinker makes the sweeping argument that violence declines with modernization as countries of the world gradually converge in terms of economic markets, communication structures, and culture. An alternative prediction is provided by conflict perspectives, which argue that growing income inequality both within and between countries will serve to drive criminal violence ever higher. We use fixed effects regression models to examine the extent to which national homicide victimization rates for 55 countries have shared declining trends for the past six decades. Our results show that homicide rates in the countries examined trended in the same downward direction since the early 1990s, but support for a modernization perspective was limited mostly to a subset of wealthy, western-style democracies.

The 1990s Homicide Decline

“…This study sought to expand upon research in this area by exploring (a) the extent to which homicide rates dropped in various developed and developing countries around the turn of the 21st century, and (b) the magnitude of change in homicide rates in countries from various regions. The results of this study are largely consistent with prior research which finds a general decline in homicide victimization in Western developed nations during this period (Aebi & Linde, 2014;Baumer & Wolff, 2014;LaFree et al, 2015). Moreover, the results are also in line with more recent research which finds that the general homicide decline in the Western world did not extend to certain regions such as Central and South America (LaFree et al, 2015).…”

“…The results of this study are largely consistent with prior research which finds a general decline in homicide victimization in Western developed nations during this period (Aebi & Linde, 2014;Baumer & Wolff, 2014;LaFree et al, 2015). Moreover, the results are also in line with more recent research which finds that the general homicide decline in the Western world did not extend to certain regions such as Central and South America (LaFree et al, 2015). The results of this study differ from prior research on cross-national homicide trends in two important ways.…”

The contribution of age structure to the international homicide decline

“…In contrast, where such criminogenic forces are scarce, or once they recede, the relationship between demographic pressures and homicide rates becomes most notable. This variation in the effect of age composition could serve as an explanation for the international homicide decline, while also providing an answer as to why the most violent locations are not experiencing declines in their homicide rates [40,43], as other criminogenic forces impacting those locations may be preventing them from accruing the safety benefits of the ageing of their populations.…”

“…For example, Canada had a crime decline of similar magnitude without sharing many of the criminal justice policies particular to the United States [38,39]. In fact, several countries, especially Western democracies, experienced homicide declines of comparable or greater magnitude during the same time period [2,40–43]. If crime rates were influenced predominantly by domestic policies and local socioeconomic conditions, there should be greater divergence rather than similarity in crime trends across countries.…”

“…Moreover, prior research also demonstrates that several of most violent regions of the world are not participating in the international homicide decline [40,42,43], even though many of these countries are experiencing a decline in the size of their youth population. Accordingly, we investigate if the effect of age composition on homicide trends is less evident at times and places where other criminogenic forces are more prominent (e.g.…”