I would expect a city that's mostly retirement communities to have less snatch-and-run thefts than a city where tourists make up a large part of the population at any given time.
Interestingly, Tokyo has a much larger population than London with a very low crime rate. I can’t find specific numbers on stolen phones (only lost phone statistics are published) but robberies/muggings are 0.04 per 1,000 yearly versus London’s 2.83 per 1,000. Seoul has a similar rate to Tokyo, 0.4 to 0.5.
Also, is there even a single city of London’s size that is mostly retirement communities?
In Beijing robberies are 0.55 per 1,000. In Taipei it’s an unbelievable 0.0036 per 1,000, although general theft is higher at 2.12 (compared to London at 52.9). Are all these countries underreporting?
Singapore is 0.01 per 1,000. Hanoi doesn’t have published statistics but its Numbeo crime index (calculated from surveys) is 33.8 versus London at 55.3.
I think we can stop excusing London’s numbers.
Want a non-Asian country in case Asians are somehow magical beings who don’t do robberies? Ottawa is 0.11 to 0.13 per 1,000. Vancouver is 0.73 per 1,000. Sydney is 0.13 to 0.15 per 1,000. Dubai is 0.03 to 0.045 per 1,000.
London is supposed to be a global city on par with many of these others. So what is going wrong?
It’s hard to get good stats on Cairo, but its crime index is lower than London somehow, despite the higher levels of poverty. Same with Islamabad and Jaipur.
It always shocks me how people like to excuse crime in London. 70000 phones snatched in a year. 3000 stabbings a year.
The phone snatchings are so common that I can name several victims from completely different walks of life. Maybe the most mental incident was when a colleague's phone was snatched then subsequently ditched on the floor cos it was too old to be worth the trouble of fencing...
As a native Londoner I didn't realise how much baggage I carried wrt crime until I moved to Singapore and realised that leaving your front door open, your car unlocked or your phone on a restaurant table aren't crimes you apparently deserve to be immediately punished for.
It's kind of nice knowing that children and the elderly can go about their day without fear of crime or that women can be unsupervised at night without fear of violence. It's actually very liberating being free from the tyranny of crime.
