# Homocide Rates in Thailand vs Europe and USA



## Serendipity2

Curiosity killed the cat....

While reading "Thailand Fever" I came across - at least twice - comments about cheating on your spouse or not treating her right and you're apt to suffer the loss of a body part. Somewhere south of the "Mason-Dixon Line"? and once a comment about perhaps leaving this good life? In any case it got me curious about homocide rates in Thailand, the US and western Europe - notably France and Great Britain. Some eye opening findings I must say.

Of those mentioned, France and England [GB] are fairly low - around 2 per 100,000 people give or take. The US is about 6 per 100,000 and Thailand, depending on which stat you believe is either an eye popping 41 per 100,000

Homicide and Gun-Firearm Violence in Thailand: World Ranking Crime statistics and Safety

or a fairly benign 8.49 per 100,000. This latter from the UN which I trust about as much as I trust the US government to do the right thing. [I trust my government more - but only just]

Homicide Rate by Country


So why did I undertake this thankless "mission" you might ask? That will be in my next post about old guys "Gits" and young Thai girls. 

Serendipity2


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## Serendipity2

*A Good Read*

I thought I would add a bit of info to my post above regarding homocides in Thailand. Here's a pretty good article written by James Austin Farrell on the subject but he doesn't speak much to the issue of foreigners being targets of crime but he does bring the subject up. It seems statistics on this crime are either not kept or are downplayed due to the concern for tourism.

I'm Gonna Get me an Gun by James Austin Farrell

Here is a small snippet.....

"....
Missing farang and dubious suicides

I don't have the numbers, yet I have been assured this is not specious: apparently the amount of farang deaths in Pattaya is inordinately high; scores of men are falling from their balconies and crashing into lamp posts. Luckily most have considerable wealth to leave behind for their grieving wives and elegiac in-laws. Earlier I had spoken with Andrew Drummond, a British journalist who has been in Thailand for 20 years and is presently correspondent for The Times, UK. "A Westerner dies every week in Pattaya, not all murders of course. There are a lot of suicides, I suppose it's the kind of lifestyle some people live down there," he told me. "But what about these mysterious deaths I've been hearing about, is that just myth?" Without hesitation he answered, "No, there have been a number of mysterious deaths, a while back quite a few men, at different times, were found suffocated with plastic bags on their heads. The police deduced that it was suicide, you have to ask yourself, who commits suicide in such a way? In fact, one of the men had had his hands tied, too." We had earlier talked about the high murder rate. "One of the reasons is that Thai people don't have faith in their own system and so often take the law into their own hands. They have a distinct lack of confidence in their police force." He also suspected that the fact that the police and forensics departments were combined was detrimental to this lack of confidence. "It has a dramatic effect because the police can do anything with a DNA sample. Thailand was also going to introduce the DSI, which would have been similar to the American FBI, but it never happened."


One reason I bring this issue up, and it may make many of you uncomfortable, the reality is that many farangs might be worth more dead that alive. I'll give just one example but there could be dozens. 

Let's say a lovely lotus blossom of 25 years marries a farang of 50-65. Let's assume he's an American on Social Security and they have a couple of kids. They will receive whatever income he has plus, when he reaches retirement age [62 for early retirement] they will additionally receive his SSA income monthly. When he dies [if he's had the childrens' birth registered with the US government] the widow will receive his social security check for her lifetime and will receive additional money for each minor child unti they are 18 years of age. In some cases until they are even older. So if her husband suddenly dies [regardless of the cause] she would stand to have a very nice income for her entire life AND additional money for each child by him. I'm sure that could be arranged for a few thousand baht. I don't know about retirement benefits from France or Great Britain but suspect they are similar. And just because you're younger doesn't make you immune either. She would still get social security for your death and for your minor children [I think] Be good to your wife!

Just be aware that the murder rate is VERY high in Thailand [3rd or 4th in the entire world] and money is a powerful motive for murder. This is not to discourage anyone from marrying but you need to be very careful who you DO marry and just because you have children with her is no guarantee you'll not become a victim. Finally, the government [in my not so humble opinion] keeps this information from farangs - on purpose. Again, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't out to get you. Be safe - be a bit paranoid. And don't move to Pattaya and join the Pattaya Flying Club - right King Silk? 

Serendipity2


PS We're all waiting for your return Silk! Stay loose and enjoy your sabbatical from the expat forum . Looking forward to your return


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## Guest

S2, just a caveat before we start taking these stats too seriously (ie Thailand supposedly up there in the premier murder league). You know what they say about lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Thailand's south has been the scene for a bitter struggle, one that doesn't get a huge amount of publicity worldwide, with Moslem insurgents fighting in a struggle that has seen thousands... THOUSANDS of deaths in just the last few years.

Now just imagine what that alone would do to the averages for Thailand as a whole if they are included in the nationwide murder statistics. I haven't gone into this, but I wouldn't be the least surprised if they were.

Such figures would completely distort the real picture. I was wandering through the streets of Chiang Mai late on last night with Khwaamlaap, and we mentioned how completely secure we feel, far more so that in the UK equivalent. When I've been walking around Pattaya, I've never felt any tangible sense of threat.


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## Serendipity2

frogblogger said:


> S2, just a caveat before we start taking these stats too seriously (ie Thailand supposedly up there in the premier murder league). You know what they say about lies, damned lies, and statistics.
> 
> Thailand's south has been the scene for a bitter struggle, one that doesn't get a huge amount of publicity worldwide, with Moslem insurgents fighting in a struggle that has seen thousands... THOUSANDS of deaths in just the last few years.
> 
> Now just imagine what that alone would do to the averages for Thailand as a whole if they are included in the nationwide murder statistics. I haven't gone into this, but I wouldn't be the least surprised if they were.
> 
> Such figures would completely distort the real picture. I was wandering through the streets of Chiang Mai late on last night with Khwaamlaap, and we mentioned how completely secure we feel, far more so that in the UK equivalent. When I've been walking around Pattaya, I've never felt any tangible sense of threat.



frogblogger,

I agree that any insurrection or other terrorist threat can skew the numbers. I would point out though, that Mexico is having a huge problem with the drug cartels who've murdered hundreds and there are many countries we never hear anything about - Myanmar and China come to mind - so we do need to be careful and take other factors into consideration. My primary objective was to find out about crimes against foreigners - especially homocides - and Thailand's desire to keep those numbers hidden. Tourism is a major source of revenue to the government and the country would, in my opinion, collapse were it not for foreign tourism [including expats living in Thailand]. 

The article, of which I posted a small snippet, speaks to this but again there are no good statistics. My point of even posting though is that older farangs who marry younger Thais are likely to be well above average as targets. If you're not a drunk, don't beat your wife or cheat on her, and don't cause her family to lose face you're probably safe which I would expect. Still, there can often be a motive for a young girl to marry an old American or European. She may just want a better life but she could decide to hasten his "use before" date. I do suspect the 'suicide' rate and the homicide rate is higher for farangs than for Thais but I only have anecdotal 'evidence' of this. Hate to throw cold water on the party but I don't think Muslim activities in the south begin to tell the story of Thailand's very high murder rate. I'm not sure they would classify most of that as murder anyway but I don't know. I did read that it is very easy to get a gun and the weapon of choice is usually a shotgun. Messy but effective and no ballistics. Add the indifference of the police or the fact they are overwhelmed and you have a very scary climate. Sometimes behind those smiles are not smiles? Again, a very small minority but the numbers are impressive as is Thailand's high homicide ranking.

Serendipity2


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## Guest

Was just reading a thread about this on another forum - the suggestion there was that the South Thailand insurgency murder rates were included in the overall figures, and that without them, and other internal Thai factors that are unlikely to affect foreigners, Thailand's ranking high up in the murder league plummeted to a pretty ordinary position for a SE Asian nation. Now that I can well believe.

While there is always incentive to commit murder for some reason or other, I'm sure most Thais married to old farangs for reasons other than 'love' simply wait for them to die. Much violence is inter-Thai, in fact I would suspect that Thais are at least as violent to the point of murder between themselves as they are towards farangs. In farang-Thai relationships they are, after all, generally speaking getting what they want in material terms. The benefits from bumping off a retired farang with a prenuptial in place and a pension income (1) that could well dry up after his death are dubious to say the least. 

I'm very wary of articles that make a song and dance about phenomena such as this - the one you linked to mentioned the "problems in the south", very briefly. I read somewhere that these insurgency bombings and killings average out at something like half a dozen a day over the past few years, that alone is a big factor. Then there is the other situation alluded to, the huge illegal immigrant situation with large numbers of these living in poverty.

On the whole relatively prosperous Westerners aren't imho going to make the best murder targets for a number of reasons... killing the golden goose, high profile and risk attached (not easy to make a murder look like suicide), in particular.

I also reckon that similar incentives (to dispose of one partner) exist just about anywhere in the world, where the marriage is mostly a material arrangement. That's not my idea of a satisfactory relationship, and to an extent I would say if you're daft enough to enter such a 'business' set-up then more fool you!

_(1) The state pension is relatively limited, and income from voluntary pension scheme benefits can be included in the prenuptial (ie to benefit children from earlier marriage(s)). _


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## KhwaamLap

Another thing to consider on these world stats is that many countries either do not keep stats, do not keep them in a condusive way or do not disclose them. As you mentioned Myanmar (Burma) and China - you really think either of these countries allow foreign organisations access to this sort of information (even if they know it themselves - Burma more so than China)?

Such stats are so unreliable as to be almost useless - in fact if you took Britain, USA, France, Germany, Scandinavia and possibly Japan - then these figures are likely to be somewhat accurate - just about anywhere else is varying degrees of inaccuracies down to 'don't know they wouldn't tell us' or 'we guessed'.

Though I would suggest that deaths caused by insurgent's bombs (terrorism) should be included as murders - though not where insurgents have been 'legally' shot by the army or police (as this would be state/millitary casualties and not muder).

If we go to a war zone (Yala) - we expect to be at risk. In Pattaya, its the tourist capital of Thailand and as with Costa Del Crime, Amsterdam etc its where scum congregates to prey on the weak. In CM, BKK, Isaan, etc there is much less crime and much less danger - of course there are bad people everywhere, but flies are attracted by rotten meat.


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## Serendipity2

frogblogger,

Great points. I've no way of knowing but I would think any insurgency would be at least primarily military and I doubt that the murder numbers are included. Perhaps they are, however, as in one "survey" there were over 40 murders per 100,000 and in another just under 9 murders per 1000,000. The latter number is about 4x the murder rate in France and England and about 2x that of the US. Still, your point is well taken as to how the information is gathered and processed. Still, I doubt the Thai government is very keen on reporting a lot of farang murders. Many might end up as "missing persons" or "suicides" whereas in Europe and the US there would be a very clear distinction at least with suicides. 

I doubt many farangs get prenuptial agreements. That seems to be a strategy only for the wealthy who worry more about keeping it from everyone than a typical farang. One huge advantage an older farang has is his social security check and upon his death his spouse would "inherit" a lifetime income stream. If she's 25 years old that's a lot of years she will have a comfortable income. If they have children together there is a check to the minor children too so that is even more money. I don't think the latter has anything to do with the farang's death either. So be good to your in-laws!  I doubt bumping off a farang spouse is common but since it was mentioned in "Thailand Fever" I thought there must be something to it. Who wants missing body parts - or worse? 

The overall murder rate in Thailand is 30 murders [one article] - but if that is including insurgencies I would be surprised only because those are usually military with collateral damage. Well, in my mind anyway. So it depends on who is doing the counting I guess. Still, 30 murders per day is a lot for a country as small as Thailand. I'm sure some involves immigrants - but aren't many farangs immigrants? There are some Thais, barely surviving, that might consider us a fair target. Most don't, I'm sure but it only takes one that does! :/ There are also drug deals gone bad, the Thai mafia, rogue police that settle scores and a host of other "terminal" misunderstandings. Always watch your six! 


I doubt many Thais look at farangs as the Golden Goose. Many probably look at us as a pain in the rear. As the Brits said about the Yanks in England during WWII, "The only think wrong with the Yanks is that they're overpaid, over-sexed and over here!". And we were on the same side! 

Having money make us envied by some, hated by others and respected by still others. One size does not fit all. Few places in the world are viewed as places an average middle aged farang can move to where he has a chance to marry a very willing and beautiful young lady. The only other country I know of would be the Philippines and it resembles Thailand in many regards. I think Malaysia might be another but I'm not sure. Some Thais take a dim view of us "plundering their natural resources."

Not to dash romance and love but aren't all marriages a bit of business? I can't imagine many drop-dead gorgeous women clamoring to marry a poor but attractive man but they'll be all over one that's ugly as sin - provided he's loaded. That seems a pretty universal reality. The single biggest cause of divorce? Money. No money, no honey. Yes, love IS grand but you had also better be able to keep your bride happy. Happy wife, happy life!


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## Serendipity2

Hi KhwaamLap,

You're right of course. Every country does it differently and some probably not at all. 

There was a noticable lack of African countries on that list for example and they readily kill one another with great efficiency. I suspect most of these stats are derived by the United Nations as every country [with one or two exceptions] is a member. I think there are certain reporting requirement each nation is required to provide including births, deaths, homicides, mining activities, agriculture and a host of other vital information. Our CIA also gathers it's own intel and every American [or French or Britsh] embassy is an intelligence gathering facility. Information is power. I do think the Thai government does suppress information on crimes against tourists. Tourism is the backbone of Thailand and without it there would be a huge collapse of the country. If every tourist cancelled his/her trip and every expat moved out of Thailand the country would go into a depression. But you would never know it by the government's policies towards farangs and all the rules and regulations.


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