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Kasz216 on 31 May 2009
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Rath said:
Kasz216 said:
Rath said:
 

The factors don't change crime rates but they do strongly change the measurment of crime rates. So the data is pretty worthless because it doesn't show with any accuracy the amount of crime in the country.

It depends really on if  you believe in moral absolutism or not.  If so it's pretty worthless.

If not however it has plenty of merit as what each society deems as a crime and how they report it since they are self reporting.

I don't believe in moral absolutism, however I do believe that in comparing criminality between countries you have to take a stance of at least some moral absolutism, or compare specific crimes. Otherwise you end up comparing very very different things and its all a bit pointless unless you're studying the perception of criminalities between societies rather than actual crime rates.

However if you take murder, robbery, rapes, assaults and muggings and compare them for example (which are considered criminal pretty much everywhere) and compare them you will find that the Scandinavian countries will generally be towards the bottom end of the scale.

Another interesting one to take is the number of people imprisoned per 1000 people. Though of course that also runs into problems, especially in tyranical countries where people are imprisoned for political reasons.

Ah, however the original point, and the point that you were trying to prove were the committing of crimes.  If you don't believe in moral absolutism then you can't take any stance of moral absolutism.

Since the value you are trying to get at is the number of people who are willing to commit crimes.

The only way to judge this is by what each culture counts as a crime and by judging it based on that.  It allows you to adjust better for cultural differences.  (though is still by no means perfect.)

By comparing direct crimes you are doing nothing but covering up for the commiting of non-universal crimes which is a very bad flaw in methodology.

Afterall if we had great data on software piracy, should China suddenly be seen as very criminal?  Even though piracy isn't seen as bad as an offense?

Your methodology is about as off as it could be in this case.  If your going to compare morals cross cultures you need to account for cultural differences.