Anecdotal Claims About Crime in Egypt Exagerated or Untrue.
Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 9:23 am
The Egyptian Law and Order base-ball gets tossed around a lot on this forum. Always views are based on anecdote, rumor or newspaper reports. Any questioning of this is seen as insensitive to individual situations or lacking local knowledge whilst any attempt to put crime and law and order in Egypt in any context is either ignored or derided as lacking local knowledge. The standard response is often ‘its my opinion’ but opinions should be based on more than anecdote or rumor. Opinion presented as fact is close to bigotry.
Occasionally there are snide references implying that hard evidence is somehow cumbersome, pretentious, misses the nuances of local life or is grandstanding.
Unfavorable comparisons are often made between Egypt and first world countries. This is ridiculous and ignores its lack of resources and institutions. In some cases these comparisons are misleading because some of those ‘favored’ countries, and one in particular, are not as good as claimed or as remembered.
The view that crime in Egypt is high when compared with others is not true as are lots of related views put about. People who put these views should either put up or speak with caution.
Well here is another attempt to put crime, corruption, rule of law etc in context. This information could be goggled in two minutes by anyone half interested in Egypt.
The following is drawn from UN global stats on crime, conviction and punishment which paints a different picture to the one stridently trumpeted on this forum. Its findings are both fairer to Egyptians (because it is based on evidence and published by the UN) and at odds to the seemingly self absorbed experience of some ex-pats and holiday makers. It should also give caution to those who routinely and unfavorably compare Egypt to the idealized first world or at least a certain part of it.
I expect a response along the lines of ‘lies, dam lies and statistics’ but look forward to any evidence to the contrary.
Homicide rates in Egypt are the second lowest in Africa, behind Morocco, and are a small fraction of those in neighboring Sudan as well as those tourist hot spots Kenya, Tanzania and the Seychelles. The international tourist hot spot of South Africa has almost 20 times the homicide rate as Egypt. Egypt’s rates are slightly less than Canada, about a third of the US and about half the UK.
Major assault rates are very low in absolute terms (less than the world median but the stats are incomplete for Egypt).
All this might be meaningless until you compare the UK assault rates with those of poor benighted Portugal. In the UK you are almost 4 times likely to be assaulted. Compared with third world tourist spot, Thailand, you are 40 times safer from assault than in the UK.
Rape is uncommon in Egypt when compared with England and Wales where it is 50 times more likely. Thailand, another popular tourist spot, offers tourists relative safety from rape at a third of the rate of England and Wales.
Kidnapping is uncommon in Egypt as in civilized countries such as Germany and Austria but if you are worried about being kidnapped stay away from England and Wales where it is 80 times more likely than in Egypt.
Of course bribery is very bad in Egypt and compares unfavorably with the rest of the world.
Conviction rates are relatively high in Egypt compared with the rest of the world and are several times the rate of England and Wales. This might be music to the right wing of the UK Conservative Party but probably is a worrying sign of forced confessions and biased judges in Egypt.
Numbers of prosecutors in Egypt are relatively high when compared with similar states such as Algeria and Morocco and are 4 times the rate for England and Wales. This doesn’t seem to convert into anecdotes about court efficiency which tends to confirm my views, put elsewhere, that the bureaucracy is laden with timeservers and patronage. Again, on this point, the numbers of judges as a percentage of the population is higher in Egypt than England and Wales.
The prison stats are a bit difficult to understand with the rates of prison employees as a percentage of the population about six times higher in England and Wales than Egypt. Maybe part of this is the incarceration rates in England and Wales which are 50% higher than in Egypt.
There are no international pillaging stats, which might be for the better.
The crime stats published by the Metropolitan Police (hardly free of corruption) are similar to the above:
Egypt is about the same as other tourist sites like Indonesia, Philippines, Mexico, Tanzania and Argentina. That seems to make sense.
Hot tourist spots such as Italy and Greece are rated poorly on crime. Thailand and Morocco are better than Greece as is El Salvador. Bosnia is safer that Italy as is Romania, Jordan and Turkey, Rwanda and Costa Rica.
The UK is listed as only the 17th safest country in the world immediately above the USA and Chile.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/ ... A77-300972
I accept that these stats are surprising and probably contain errors, inaccuracies and data collection problems but, even allowing for large errors, you are left with a surprising general picture which should give even give the most biased Egyptian critic pause for thought.
http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and ... ustice.pdf
Freedom of the press isn’t law, order and crime but it is a proxy for a democracy and free systems like courts, police, prosecutions, the use of the press to force governments to maintain law, order and justice. On this measure, according to Freedom House’s international index Egypt is in the same category as Turkey, Italy, Greece, Spain and Hungry. It is ahead of Mexico and the Russian Federation. Not bad for a poor country.
http://www.freedomhouse.org/reports
Reporters Without Borders gives a ranking on international press freedom. Egypt is 158, which is pretty bad until you note that much richer countries such as Russia are 148, Turkey 154, Singapore 149 and the Philippines 147. One shouldn’t get too smug about western press freedom because Greece is 84, most of the former Yugoslavia in the 60’s, Italy 57, France 37, the UK 32 with little Portugal, Uruguay, Cyprus, Namibia, New Zealand and Costa Rica having a more free press than the self righteous European democracies. As you would, expect the ever intelligent and fair minded Canadians and Nordics do very well on freedom as they do on crime which sort of shows a link. Is there something about cold climates making people free and law abiding?
http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html
Courts and the justice system are part of the law and order system. The respected World Justice Project tries to come up with a justice index which rates all countries by accountability of public officials, even application of law, accessible justice and competent judges in adequate numbers with adequate resources.
Their index places Egypt in the same category as Romania and Bulgaria (not good company) but, on a ‘positive’ note, only slightly behind the much richer full democracies: Greece, Italy, Hungary and Brazil. In case we get too smug about the English Common Law compared with corrupt Egypt and dodgy Italy, the same index has the (non-common law) Nordics on top again (as ever, those freedom loving, efficient and hard working Vikings) and France, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands superior to the UK. By my reading, Australia, surely a tropical Nordic, comes out about number 5 in the world but I’m not using that to proclaim Australian superiority over the efforts of poor and unstable third world countries to deliver justice. Canada, as always, does well.
http://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-law-index-map
This is more than enough evidence for the time being and I hope that some find it a useful antidote to the Coronation Street, over the back fence, anecdotal carping carping about how bad Egypt is.
This is good evidence that Egypt is not as bad as alleged and not nearly as bad as you would expect when you compare it with rich countries. In addition it could be a lot worse. The lack of understanding of, and sympathy for, Egypt’s situation and how it copes with its problems whilst dealing, as best it can, with law and order and justice is something I cannot understand.
Occasionally there are snide references implying that hard evidence is somehow cumbersome, pretentious, misses the nuances of local life or is grandstanding.
Unfavorable comparisons are often made between Egypt and first world countries. This is ridiculous and ignores its lack of resources and institutions. In some cases these comparisons are misleading because some of those ‘favored’ countries, and one in particular, are not as good as claimed or as remembered.
The view that crime in Egypt is high when compared with others is not true as are lots of related views put about. People who put these views should either put up or speak with caution.
Well here is another attempt to put crime, corruption, rule of law etc in context. This information could be goggled in two minutes by anyone half interested in Egypt.
The following is drawn from UN global stats on crime, conviction and punishment which paints a different picture to the one stridently trumpeted on this forum. Its findings are both fairer to Egyptians (because it is based on evidence and published by the UN) and at odds to the seemingly self absorbed experience of some ex-pats and holiday makers. It should also give caution to those who routinely and unfavorably compare Egypt to the idealized first world or at least a certain part of it.
I expect a response along the lines of ‘lies, dam lies and statistics’ but look forward to any evidence to the contrary.
Homicide rates in Egypt are the second lowest in Africa, behind Morocco, and are a small fraction of those in neighboring Sudan as well as those tourist hot spots Kenya, Tanzania and the Seychelles. The international tourist hot spot of South Africa has almost 20 times the homicide rate as Egypt. Egypt’s rates are slightly less than Canada, about a third of the US and about half the UK.
Major assault rates are very low in absolute terms (less than the world median but the stats are incomplete for Egypt).
All this might be meaningless until you compare the UK assault rates with those of poor benighted Portugal. In the UK you are almost 4 times likely to be assaulted. Compared with third world tourist spot, Thailand, you are 40 times safer from assault than in the UK.
Rape is uncommon in Egypt when compared with England and Wales where it is 50 times more likely. Thailand, another popular tourist spot, offers tourists relative safety from rape at a third of the rate of England and Wales.
Kidnapping is uncommon in Egypt as in civilized countries such as Germany and Austria but if you are worried about being kidnapped stay away from England and Wales where it is 80 times more likely than in Egypt.
Of course bribery is very bad in Egypt and compares unfavorably with the rest of the world.
Conviction rates are relatively high in Egypt compared with the rest of the world and are several times the rate of England and Wales. This might be music to the right wing of the UK Conservative Party but probably is a worrying sign of forced confessions and biased judges in Egypt.
Numbers of prosecutors in Egypt are relatively high when compared with similar states such as Algeria and Morocco and are 4 times the rate for England and Wales. This doesn’t seem to convert into anecdotes about court efficiency which tends to confirm my views, put elsewhere, that the bureaucracy is laden with timeservers and patronage. Again, on this point, the numbers of judges as a percentage of the population is higher in Egypt than England and Wales.
The prison stats are a bit difficult to understand with the rates of prison employees as a percentage of the population about six times higher in England and Wales than Egypt. Maybe part of this is the incarceration rates in England and Wales which are 50% higher than in Egypt.
There are no international pillaging stats, which might be for the better.
The crime stats published by the Metropolitan Police (hardly free of corruption) are similar to the above:
Egypt is about the same as other tourist sites like Indonesia, Philippines, Mexico, Tanzania and Argentina. That seems to make sense.
Hot tourist spots such as Italy and Greece are rated poorly on crime. Thailand and Morocco are better than Greece as is El Salvador. Bosnia is safer that Italy as is Romania, Jordan and Turkey, Rwanda and Costa Rica.
The UK is listed as only the 17th safest country in the world immediately above the USA and Chile.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/ ... A77-300972
I accept that these stats are surprising and probably contain errors, inaccuracies and data collection problems but, even allowing for large errors, you are left with a surprising general picture which should give even give the most biased Egyptian critic pause for thought.
http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and ... ustice.pdf
Freedom of the press isn’t law, order and crime but it is a proxy for a democracy and free systems like courts, police, prosecutions, the use of the press to force governments to maintain law, order and justice. On this measure, according to Freedom House’s international index Egypt is in the same category as Turkey, Italy, Greece, Spain and Hungry. It is ahead of Mexico and the Russian Federation. Not bad for a poor country.
http://www.freedomhouse.org/reports
Reporters Without Borders gives a ranking on international press freedom. Egypt is 158, which is pretty bad until you note that much richer countries such as Russia are 148, Turkey 154, Singapore 149 and the Philippines 147. One shouldn’t get too smug about western press freedom because Greece is 84, most of the former Yugoslavia in the 60’s, Italy 57, France 37, the UK 32 with little Portugal, Uruguay, Cyprus, Namibia, New Zealand and Costa Rica having a more free press than the self righteous European democracies. As you would, expect the ever intelligent and fair minded Canadians and Nordics do very well on freedom as they do on crime which sort of shows a link. Is there something about cold climates making people free and law abiding?
http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html
Courts and the justice system are part of the law and order system. The respected World Justice Project tries to come up with a justice index which rates all countries by accountability of public officials, even application of law, accessible justice and competent judges in adequate numbers with adequate resources.
Their index places Egypt in the same category as Romania and Bulgaria (not good company) but, on a ‘positive’ note, only slightly behind the much richer full democracies: Greece, Italy, Hungary and Brazil. In case we get too smug about the English Common Law compared with corrupt Egypt and dodgy Italy, the same index has the (non-common law) Nordics on top again (as ever, those freedom loving, efficient and hard working Vikings) and France, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands superior to the UK. By my reading, Australia, surely a tropical Nordic, comes out about number 5 in the world but I’m not using that to proclaim Australian superiority over the efforts of poor and unstable third world countries to deliver justice. Canada, as always, does well.
http://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-law-index-map
This is more than enough evidence for the time being and I hope that some find it a useful antidote to the Coronation Street, over the back fence, anecdotal carping carping about how bad Egypt is.
This is good evidence that Egypt is not as bad as alleged and not nearly as bad as you would expect when you compare it with rich countries. In addition it could be a lot worse. The lack of understanding of, and sympathy for, Egypt’s situation and how it copes with its problems whilst dealing, as best it can, with law and order and justice is something I cannot understand.
