The UK reports convictions and the US incidents. I went to the UN site and a nightmare is standardizing. I'm not saying the rate here isn't higher, but not as much as it might appear.
I have read the claim you make here before (the UK only counting convictions, and thus producing a more small-c-conservative figure than the US) on a US blogger site somewhere, and concluded that sounded pretty important, but have since encountered people saying that isn't true after all. This reply is a bit long, because I got a bee in my bonnet about this and never managed to work out exactly what the truth is, as haven't found any comprehensive non-partisan account directly engaging with the claim.
Ha, found the blog again, I think it was this one
http://rboatright.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/comparing-england-or-uk-murder-rates.html
After having a frustrating time trying to google for definitive answers one way or the other, I eventually found this
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...offences/yearendingmarch2015/chapter2homicide
Which appears to imply that the claim you repeat here isn't strictly true...unless I've still misunderstood something.
This bit
When the police initially record an offence as a homicide, it remains classified as such unless the police or courts decide that a lesser offence, or no offence, took place.
and this bit
Of the 518 cases currently recorded as homicide in the year ending March 2015, data on the case outcomes of the principal suspects at 13 November 2015 showed (
Appendix Table 2.02 (1.59 Mb Excel sheet)):
- court proceedings had resulted in homicide convictions in 198 cases (38%)
- court proceedings were pending for 173 cases (33%)
- proceedings had been discontinued or not initiated or all suspects had been acquitted in 18 cases (3%)
- suspects had committed suicide in 28 cases (5%)
- no suspects had been charged in connection with 99 cases (19%)
would seem to imply that the UK does
not insist on a conviction before counting a suspicious death as homicide. But it does imply that some deaths originally categorised as such are later downgraded, if it turns out the person, say, in fact committed sucide or died by accident (or turns up alive, presumably!).
I mean, if your claim were strictly true, surely it would mean, if there's no conviction in a case like the Manchester suicide bomber and London bridge attackers (because the perpetrators died in the attack so they can't be convicted) that those deaths aren't counted in stats? I don't believe that is true. Likewise if the killer is never found, but it remains the police's view that it was a murder, it gets counted as such.
But it's not definitive, I accept, because of that possibility of a death later being decided to be not a homicide [edit to remove 'murder'] - but how is that dealt with in the US and how significant a number is that category?
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