【导读】联合国报告显示,全球每年有几十万人死于谋杀。在研究了联合国的报告后,《经济学人》就如何避免谋杀给出了几点建议。
The odds of being murdered
被谋杀概率
Dicing with death
死亡的骰子
The UN offers some hints on how to avoid being bumped off
联合国暗示了一些避免谋杀的方法
Apr 12th 2014 | From the print edition
CONGRATULATIONS: if you are reading this then you are not one of the 437,000 people whose lives ended as statistics in a grisly report on murder published on April 10th by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. The unfortunate half-million were all those around the world who were slain in 2012. The average person thus had roughly a one in 16,000 chance of being bumped off that year. But as the UN’s figures make clear, there is no such thing as an average person. How can you shorten your odds of making it through 2014?
恭喜:4月10日联合国毒品和犯罪问题办公室发表了一份吓人的谋杀报告,统计显示全球共有437000人死于非命。如果此刻你正在阅读这篇文章,那你就有幸没有成为其中一员。那近五十万名倒霉孩子是在2012年被谋杀的。因此那一年,一名地球人死于谋杀的概率大约为1/16000。不过随着联合国数据显示,并非人人如此。那么在2014年,怎么才能降低自己的被谋杀概率捏。
First, don’t live in the Americas or Africa, where murder rates (one in 6,100 and one in 8,000 respectively) are more than four times as high as the rest of the world. Western Europe and East Asia are the safest regions. And the safest countries? Liechtenstein recorded no murders at all in 2012, but its population could fit in a football stadium. Among those countries whose populations number in millions, the safest is Singapore, which clocked up just 11 murders in 2012, or one killing per 480,000 people. In Honduras, the world’s most violent country, one in every 1,100 residents was killed.
首先,请不要在美洲或非洲生活。这里的谋杀率(分别为1/6100和1/8000)比其他地方的四倍还高。西欧与东亚是最安全的地区。那最安全的国家呢?列支敦士登2012年就没有过谋杀记录,不过一个足球场就能装下这个国家的全体国民。在百万人口级别的国家中,最安全的当属新加坡,2012年仅发生过11起谋杀案,平均480000中才会有一起。而在世界暴力之都洪都拉斯,每1100位居民中就有1人死于谋杀。
Next, be a woman. Your chance of being murdered will be barely a quarter what it would be were you a man. In fact, steer clear of men altogether: nearly half of all female murder-victims are killed by their partner or another (usually male) family member. But note that the gender imbalance is less pronounced in the rich world, probably because there is less banditry, a mainly male pursuit. In Japan and South Korea slightly over half of all murder victims are female.
其次,要投胎做女人。女人被谋杀的概率大约是男人的1/4。事实上,请完全避开男人:谋杀案中,大约一半的受害女性是被伴侣或另一名家庭成员(通常为男性)所害。不过在富裕国家,性别间的谋杀率差异变小了,这很可能是由于富裕国家的男子不太参与暴力犯罪,而这本来是男性主导的领域。在日本与韩国,将将超过一半的受害者为女性。
Then, sit back and grow older. From the age of 30 onwards, murder rates fall steadily in most places. But not everywhere. Europeans are more at risk in middle age than in youth. European women cannot let their guard down even in retirement: those aged over 60 are more likely to be murdered than those aged 15-29. The UN speculates that this may be because they are more likely to have partners, and those partners are more likely to drink. Other studies have found that alcohol featured in half of murders in Australia, Finland and Sweden, making it a more common factor than any weapon.
然后,请坐下慢慢变老。在大多数地方,30岁以后谋杀率会稳定下降。不过不是所有地方都这样。欧洲的中年人就比年轻人更危险。而欧洲女士即使退休后也不能放松戒备:60岁以后被谋杀的概率甚至高于15-29岁。联合国推测原因可能是她们拥有伴侣的几率更大,而伴侣嗜酒的概率也更高。其他的研究表明,在澳洲,芬兰,瑞典,有一半的谋杀案祸起于酒精。酒精比武器还厉害。
And if you are killed? The chances are no one will be convicted. Worldwide only 43% of murders result in someone being put behind bars. This, too, varies hugely: whereas Europe’s police solve eight out of ten murders and those in Asia clear up nearly half, three-quarters of killers in the Americas escape justice (a smaller share in North America; a higher one elsewhere in the region). As long as that continues, there is little reason to think that the region’s fearsome murder rate will be tamed.
如果你不幸被杀了?那很有可能没有人被定罪。从全世界来看,凶手最终被抓起来的谋杀案只有43%。这个数据同样在不同地方区别很大:10起案件中欧洲警察能破8起,亚洲警察大约能破一半,而3/4的美洲凶手逃脱了法律制裁(北美稍低,其他地方更高)。如果美洲的这种现象持续下去,那就不太有理由相信这里骇人听闻的谋杀率会得到控制。
From the print edition: International