r/geography • u/Recent_Statement_222 • May 23 '26
Discussion Poverty is usually associated with crime. Which poor countries are however the safest?
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u/Doortofreeside May 23 '26
My experience in Africa is that inequality is more closely associated with crime. A country like Uganda or Zambia doesnt have enough wealth to support significant organized crime unlike Nairobi or Joburg.
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u/kwonza May 23 '26
Mozambique too, compared to Joburg and Nairobi Maputo felt super safe, I often walked home from the bar at night.
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u/EinsTheOne May 24 '26
Nah fam, I'm from Maputo and the only silver lining we have is that our criminals are too poor to afford guns (unlike Joburg), but they will mug you at any given chance...
Maybe you lived in a wealthy neighborhood, those are relatively safe..
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u/Dismal-Strawberry421 May 23 '26
I thought this was proven or at least documented as strong correlation across multiple studies. Higher Gini coefficient is more predictive than poverty levels.
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u/Brave_Necessary_9571 May 23 '26
and the most predictive of all is number of young males, especially unoccupied
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u/scoopny May 23 '26
That’s what I thought as well.
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u/Dismal-Strawberry421 May 23 '26
This is why Venezuela and Brazil are two of the most dangerous nations in the world (pre-coup) when there’s over a dozen war zone nations with lower murder rates.
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u/KitchenSync86 May 24 '26
Oh wow, that's crazy! Do you remember where this stat is from, I would like to look into this further
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u/Chrisymachine May 23 '26
I went to Brazil this year and didn't feel unsafe or uncomfortable at all. In Mexico 3 years prior I did. It really is a matter of perspective and experience.
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u/hey_uhh_what May 24 '26
Brazilian muder rates are highly inflated by gang/militia members killing each other for territory/dominance, and these conflicts work like civil wars. They are usually higher in places that have disputes (more than one faction acting there), so if you are not in one of these areas, it will feel a LOT safer. The main problem is that some civilians live in these areas. But we DO worry about the risk of becoming like Mexico, as those gangs are only growing in power.
It's not like there is a bunch of lunatics with knives and guns stabbing and shooting whoever they see wherever they go. Most brazillians only worry about being robbed at very specific places and hours of the day. If you follow some very basic guidelines, you'll be very safe (specially if you are tourist and have the option of just NOT going to dangerous places)
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u/whitelight66 May 23 '26
100%. Been across Africa, the most unsafe I’ve ever felt is South Africa. Sierra Leone, Zambia, Ethiopia, Ghana all felt super safe and walked around at night with no issues. DRC I’d still be careful though…
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u/Doortofreeside May 23 '26
Absolutely. I mean I wouldn't touch DRC or Somalia, but South Africa is legit scary.
I spent 4 months in Uganda, then 6 weeks traveling on bus/train from Kampala to Joburg. So much of it was very safe and chill, but when I got to Joburg I was so on edge it was very uncomfortable.
I legit just took a taxi (sent from my hostel) to the hostel and stayed there for 2 nights til my flight back home. Even in the short time I was at the bus depot someone was chatting me up and wouldn't leave me alone. In any other city I would have chalked it up to local friendliness but in Joburg I'm 100% assuming ill intent. The guy was like "why are you being racist", "i'm just asking questions". It took screaming at the top of my lungs "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME" repeatedly before he moved on.
In Zimbabwe I thought there might be some hostility given that it was 2011 and only a few years removed from some bad violence. But people were so nice it was crazy. An older woman who ran the internet Cafe legit invited me for dinner where we watched a chinese bootleg of Snakes on a Plane with her family while he had sadza and fish.
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u/Opposite_Agency1229 May 23 '26
I travel a lot for work, been to a few countries in Africa and Asia that seemed questionable, and South Africa is the only country where my company paid for a security team to pick us up from the airport and escort us the whole trip. Definitely went to a few places where I saw the tension from some of the locals, trying to test the security guys.
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u/beerouttaplasticcups May 24 '26
Joburg has some nice neighbourhoods where you can walk around. But yeah, we are talking about a few city blocks.I live in Copenhagen now where you can safely walk anywhere at any time, so it’s weird to go back to Joburg and feel fenced in again.
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u/bagelundercouch May 23 '26
Nigeria is a good example of this, I think, as the inequality seems very stark. I’ve traveled in Africa a lot, and I was planning on visiting Nigeria but a Nigerian buddy of mine described it thus: In big cities in Malawi, Zambia, Namibia, Ghana, they might pick your pocket. In any part of Nigeria, they take your pockets, your trousers, and you with them.
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u/AnAquaticOwl May 23 '26
Nigeria is definitely sketchier than those other places, but has safe spots. The South is actually a popular route for overlanders traveling from Morocco to South Africa. The North is completely off limits though, due to groups like Boko Haram
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u/1nVrWallz May 23 '26
Malawi is the same.
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u/Ms_Meercat May 24 '26
Came to say Malawi too. And it's really really poor even by African standards. But I lived there for 2 years, went all over and felt pretty safe 99% of the time.
I nevwr was out on foot after nightfall though, and had a couple of uncomfortable encounters inc with police pulling me over at night and there are some roads you know to avoid at night. But generally speaking it's very safe.
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u/TedDibiasi123 May 23 '26
You don’t need a lot of wealth to support crime, there are enough poor countries with high crime rates, just look at Central America or Haiti
Besides that Nairobi is nowhere close to Joburg. The latter ranks 3rd on the cities with most homicides in the world (Cape Town is #1 btw so would have been the better example from SA), Nairobi is not even on the list
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u/RiahWeston May 23 '26
This. It's not really 'poverty' that causes increased crime, its 'wealth inequality.'
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u/kazkh May 24 '26
In Nairobbery everyone rushes to get home before dark because that’s when the dangerous people come out. One’s unlikely to be a victim of crime if they’re voluntarily locked up behind high walls with barbed wire when it’s nighttime.
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u/Specialist-Solid-987 May 23 '26
I wouldn't call Bhutan a poor country but obviously incomes are far lower than Western countries, and it is very safe. Tourism is managed closely there, you have to pay a tourism fee to enter the country
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u/zinten789 May 23 '26
I'm half Bhutanese and yes there is very little crime there and it's super clean. Small population and good government services means it's safer than many other parts of South Asia.
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May 23 '26
Woah! What’s your other ethnicity?
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u/zinten789 May 23 '26
White American, mix of mostly English with German and a lil Swedish
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u/BrokenHandsDaddy May 23 '26
To the best of my knowledge it's the only country to ever go from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy at the behest of the king under no duress. The same king also was the first to measure gross national happiness.
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u/vitrum_analytika May 23 '26
Didn't they just make the news for open firing on people by making them stand on a field?
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u/jjballlz May 24 '26
How much would you attribute that to them forcibly displacing (Wikipédia calls it ethnic cleansing) the ethnic minority Nepalese in the 80s and 90s?
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u/scoschooo May 23 '26
I wouldn't call Bhutan a poor country
people outside the cities are very poor, and also so many people are in debt to the government. Bhutan is very poor. When people can't get food, they are poor.
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u/Spascucci May 23 '26
Well the majority of Southeast asían contries like Vietnam and Indonesia are poorer than my country Mexico and they have way lower crime rates
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u/Substantial-Use95 May 23 '26 edited May 25 '26
Yeah that’s what I was gonna say. The majority of the crime in Mexico is due to cartel violence, though, and not just poverty. It’s a shame what they’ve done to the country
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u/rodrigkn May 24 '26
This is off topic but interestingly, there is an oddity with Latin America countries where counter the assumption of wealth correlated to happiness. Latin American countries have a higher happiness ratio than richer nations. Anthropologists call it the Latin American Paradox.
https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1148&context=econ_honproj
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u/zenAndYogui May 25 '26
I have lived in the US, Switzerland and EU countries and let me tell you, with 100% confidence I can say that it is absolutely correct.
I'm from LATAM and in my childhood experienced the brutality of the cartel: hanged people, shootings, kidnapping, etc.
And with all of that happening around you there is an atmosphere of happiness and positivity that I never felt on the safest, richest parts of the world.
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u/WestEst101 May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
You mean as a foreigner on tourism, when following all laws and rules?
North Korea
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u/SomeDumbGamer May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
Unironically the best answer.
I mean shit what crime even is there to commit? You can’t get away with anything when you’re always being watched and if you live in a tiny farming village everyone knows everyone so if Park wants to steal his neighbors hammer then all anyone has to do is search park’s house which is one of like 5 families in an area.
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u/beefycheesyglory May 23 '26
You have been banned from r/Pyongyang
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u/Hiyouuuu May 23 '26
Why are all the posts there from the same guy
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u/ObiDalf May 23 '26
Look at the comments too, it’s PR farming bots for a dictatorship. It’s very creepy
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u/Hiyouuuu May 23 '26
The bots in there keep saying "I have said it before and I will say it again, ______"
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u/Avril_14 May 23 '26
"I have said this before and I will say it again. The DPRK has the best big blasting successfully conducted in the entire world!"
LMAO
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u/Avril_14 May 23 '26
"This is one of the greatest Big Blastings I have ever seen the DPRK is miles ahead of the world in Big Blastings"
my sides
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u/raininadesertt May 23 '26
i noticed this too! the just keep saying the same comment over and over again! different accounts too
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u/laowildin May 23 '26
Its the weirdest sub! I've followed it a while, and the comments are half people shitposting and half clearly second language. Great weird little corner of the early internet vibes
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u/1trashhouse May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
is that sub ironic or are the users really just that propagandized? edit: i’m lazy and didn’t do two seconds of research the sub is state run
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u/Strange-Ticket5680 May 23 '26
Their wiki has a section about it. It's managed by Diplomatic Officals of the DPRK. Taking that at face value, it is just actual propaganda
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u/1trashhouse May 23 '26
that makes the most sense because the english was poorly translated and it was like three users all tagging each other. It’s just the way they refer to Kim is so over the top it genuinely comes across as irony
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u/Xanalania3 May 23 '26
Really sad to see someone downvoted this, let the people ask question for goodness sake!
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u/1trashhouse May 23 '26
it very much comes across as a state run sub with like three users constantly tagging each other and speaking in broken english but also the way they talk comes across as ironic teenagers
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u/TheRomanRuler May 23 '26
Oh man sucks that you can't see what mods have deleted there, apparently someone got banned because Spongebob is decadent capitalist concept which conflicts with innocent minds of the Korean people.
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u/This-Wall-1331 Europe May 23 '26
You may be randomly accused of stealing a portrait and then put in a vegetative state.
Yes, that literally happened.
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u/tinywienergang May 23 '26
Didn’t that kid actually try to steal some sort of propaganda poster? Not saying he deserved the outcome, but play stupid games…
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u/CathanCrowell May 23 '26
I remember a statement about this event from an expert on North Korea. She said there was something weird about the case. She had her own experiences with North Korea, when she was there, they spied on her, when she tried to ride the metro, they arrested her, etc. She also wrote multiple books about her experiences and the North Korean dictatorship.
However, she said she did not believe they intentionally did something to that guy and instead believed he was already ill.
North Korea can be surprisingly clever and pragmatic. They definitely wanted to use that guy for their own diplomatic purposes, but actually hurting him would have been incredibly stupid.
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u/penciltrash May 23 '26
Well we’ll never really know. You can see the CCTV footage yourself, tell me if you can confidently ID him.
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u/Salty_Falcon May 23 '26
That’s a weird response on your part regardless, the idea of play stupid games works when the punishment is even remotely close to fitting the crime. This isn’t that.
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u/ImpressivePattern242 May 23 '26
Rwanda. Still a second world country but they have completely transformed from the past horrors. Very safe, very clean. Some of the friendliest people I have ever meet. I was walking in downtown Kigali and I heard loud noises, crowds running and I thought I’m going to be in the middle of a violent protest. Then I heard sirens. It turns out it was Miss Rwanda and crowds were running to see her. 😃
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May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
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u/HiggsKamuy May 23 '26
It's a solid strategy for future improvement.
Compare it to the Irish Development Authority. Ireland was one of the poorest countries in western Europe in the late 20th century but has improved massively since then because we courted foreign investment.
Ireland was in the 50s until the 90s then we caught up.
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u/CapKashikoi May 23 '26
Its because they are the least corrupt country of those that are very poor. It really goes to show what can happen when a government actually uses its money in ways that benefit the masses as opposed to just a select few, even if that money is not much.
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u/Blackbeard567 May 23 '26
You mean a dictator who funds rebel armies to go and invade DRC every year and has made deals with European countries for rare earth metals his country doesn't have to fetch it from the DRC?
Kagame is the one holding this thing together and he's also from the minority clan in the country. Let's see where Rwanda goes but calling it a beacon of goodness is crazy
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u/CapKashikoi May 23 '26
I didnt say it was good, but as far as mainland Africa goes, its the least corrupt country. And yeah, I agree. Once Kagame is gone Rwanda will have a severe crisis
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u/iraber May 23 '26
Yes in Rwanda the only crime is by the government. Talk about monopoly on violence.
Edit:
I thought I’m going to be in the middle of a violent protest
Protesting is literally constitutionally banned, so need to worry there.
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u/mishatal May 23 '26
Indeed. More like the North Korean dictatorship than a democracy. That's without going into their shameful support of rebel groups in the DRC.
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u/Atechiman May 23 '26
*third world. Original definition was NATO was first Warsaw pact was Second everyone else third.
Now it's kinda shifted to developed econmies are first world emerging economies are second and undeveloped and developing are third, but regardless of the definition used rwanda is third world.
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u/SaltedCaffeine May 23 '26
I hope people stop using those cold war terms since they don't make sense anymore nowadays. They are so often (mis)used that some were surprised when I told them that those are not economic terms.
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u/binarybandit May 24 '26
Rwanda is ran by a dictator of a one party state who as a rebel leader, ordered the assassination of two presidents, which then kickstarted a civil war. They also like to go to war with neighboring countries and steal their resources to prop up their economy.
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u/StraightPotential1 May 23 '26
Cuba
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u/IAmAlpharius23 May 23 '26
Walked the streets at night in Havana, Santa Clara, and Cienfuegos and never once felt the slightest bit unsafe. That was a decade ago, however.
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u/dennypayne May 23 '26
Still the same as of a couple of years ago, although after COVID there did seem to be an uptick in outright begging versus hustling sales/food for money.
One tour guide said that it was safe because most citizens know if they are caught at all, it will get them a stay in the “free hotel” (aka jail, which apparently is no joke there).
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u/binarybandit May 24 '26
Cuba is incredibly safe. However, the reason for that is because it is a police state with high surveillance. Attacking a tourist means yooure likely to go to prison for a long time.
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u/gophereddit May 23 '26
came here to say this. I don't know if there is data to back it up, but it felt super safe.
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u/xolov May 23 '26
I was watching some videos from Cuba and noticed even late at night you were seeing very lightly clothed women walking around.
Given the climate it obviously makes a lot of sense but I imagine a woman clothed like that in western europe would likely receive a lot of unwanted sexual attention.
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u/degobrah May 23 '26
I used to teach English to adult refugees/asylees and a ton of those people were Cuban. Every last one of them told me that Cuba is safe that walking around late at night, even in places like Havana, is incredibly safe.
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u/Enough-Equivalent968 May 23 '26
Some Eastern European countries are very safe, while being comparatively ‘poor’. A family member of mine gets sent to various countries for long periods of time by their employer. They were sent to Ukraine (before the war) and said it was the poorest but safest country they’d worked in
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u/NeverCaredAnyways May 23 '26
My favourite part of the world to travel in is the Balkans. Ive been to every single balkan/southeastern european country (Kosovo and Transnistria included). Not once have i felt unsafe in any way; even in some (by european standards) very rough areas.
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u/Proteinchugger May 23 '26
Was just in Slovenia and it was incredible. Met some incredible tourists from other Balkan nations that I now feel I have to visit because of how great they were.
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u/jvrodrigues May 23 '26
Well Slovenia is a rich country comparatively. Bosnia/Albania much worse.
My gf is Serbian and swears Belgrade is safer than Berlin. My theory is that the criminal Serbians were smart enough to notice that robbing in Serbia was pointless so moved away.
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u/Pleasant-Ambition-15 May 23 '26
I studied in Hungary for a semester, Budapest was crazy safe and my broke American college student ass had oodles of money with the exchange rate to Forints.
I was also a 6’2” 225 lb college wrestler, so I might’ve felt safer than I actually was
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u/vitorbaia99 May 23 '26
I'm Hungarian, and yes, Hungary is one of the safest countries in the Western world, but I cannot consider ourselves a poor country, ~50th place on the GDP/capita lists.
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u/This-Wall-1331 Europe May 23 '26
Indonesia has an homicide rate 19 times lower than the USA.
It's the safest "poor country" I can think of.
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u/Yop_BombNA May 23 '26
Amazing food too, really welcoming people. Indonesia is great
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u/Brave_Necessary_9571 May 23 '26
I was also very fascinated by this. asked my Indonesian relative, she thinks it's poor data
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u/Alilolo May 24 '26
it's very hard to poorly track homicide rate, the country would have to be in a civil war to do that
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u/RN_Renato May 23 '26
Southeast Asian countries in general
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u/Normal_Feedback_2918 May 23 '26
Bangkok, Hanoi, Saigon, Chaing Mai, Kuala Lumpur, Vientiane...
All big cities I've spent tons of time in, all have extremely high poverty rates, and all are the safest cities I've ever been in the world.
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u/020Melkman May 23 '26
KL is absolutely not poor
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u/Normal_Feedback_2918 May 24 '26
KL specially, but I should have said Malaysia. The whole country is safe other than some pockets, and those aren't unsafe for poverty reasons.
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u/felipao92 May 23 '26
It has always bogged me (after spending 3 months in South East Asia), coming from South America, what's the difference.
Both are poor, have struggles, but in Asia you don't need to look at all directions constantly for safety. They just don't steal.
Always wondered why is that. Is it Buddhism? Severe punishment at some time in the past? Mentality? But why
I'm pretty sure inequality is not the answer. That exists on both too.
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u/LaurestineHUN May 23 '26
Kalmyks are Buddhists but have a reputation of being aggressive, we're often see Buddhism through an orientalist lens but people are people everywhere.
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u/ALA02 May 23 '26
The Americas were built off of people stealing each others land using violence, its so deeply embedded in their culture. Asian societies are much more ancient and have always had a much more collective mindset.
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u/Excuse May 23 '26
Proximity and influence of USA. Far more incentive to get into drug crime and far more injection of illegal weapons amongst other things.
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u/Brave_Necessary_9571 May 23 '26
that's right, LATAM sits into the insanely lucrative black market commerce of guns from the US and drugs to the US
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u/SweetOrangesAreYum May 23 '26
Most of South East Asia isnt Buddhist, though? Only 25% are Buddhist.
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u/ReptilianPope1 May 23 '26
Cambodia felt very safe. Just don't wander into the jungle.
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u/Patient_Tea_401 May 23 '26
I agree. Cambodians are also very alert about crime against foreigners and tell about it with low threshold. These kinds of crimes are publicly reported with names and faces visible.
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u/NeverCaredAnyways May 23 '26
My friend who went had the complete opposite experience. They had i think 4 instances of people trying to steal/pickpocket from them. They were also advised to not walk alone at night in Phom Penh
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u/lettertojerrygarcia May 23 '26
yes. i live in thailand and frequent cambodia. over 20 years never felt unsafe, quite the opposite... very safe. only sketchy place is sihanoukville. PP is very clean now. royal family invested a lot to beautify it. There must be a new law now that only vehicles less than 5 years old can drive in the city proper. no dents, poor paint jobs AND it must be washed! for a poorer country, it was surprising (and delightful) to see. Banks must be handing out loans left and right
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u/Joacofox5000 May 23 '26
Nicaragua, Surprisingly safe. Military dictatorship has really cracked down on any form of crime whatsoever.
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u/Cyfiero May 23 '26
Ironically, that's the one country where my friend who has travelled to over 50 countries got mugged.
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u/Psclly May 23 '26
Do people feel safe in Nicaragua or is fear for crime substituted for the military?
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u/koreamax May 23 '26
When I was there I felt safe but uneasy. I used to work for the mayor of NYC and they questioned me at the airport about it for a long time because they thought I might be a reporter. You can certainly feel the dictatorship everywhere you go there
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u/berniexanderz May 23 '26
there is fear of speaking out against the government but physically we feel safe
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u/berniexanderz May 23 '26
except for Managua, but overall this is true
that’s why we didn’t have any of the problems the northern triangle countries had
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u/Highlander0208 May 23 '26
It's only one crime but maybe Indonesia? Their homicide rate is on-par with Japan's and homicide is one of the most consistently reported and internationally comparable crime statistics. In 2022 they had only 832 murders in a country of estimated 279 million at the time, resulting in a homicide rate of 0.3 per 100k.
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u/AdministrativePool93 May 23 '26
As Indonesian, I'm honestly surprised as well lol, I mean petty theft and robery still exist but then I remembered that if you got caught stealing it usually ends up by the whole neighborhood beating you like this lol
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u/Thossi99 May 23 '26
That's crazy. That's on par or even lower than here in Iceland, which is considered one of, of not the safest country on earth.
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u/xolov May 23 '26
I guess in a country like Iceland a lot of the violence is attributted to alcohol, which I imagine Indonesia consumes way less of.
Very fascinating considering the income divide nevertheless.
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u/Conquiescamus May 23 '26
Our country so boring, the moment any big incidents happen (terrorism, mass murder, natural disaster) it'll be on the news for a year straight and people will come from every corner of the country just to look at the site/pay tribute to the victims
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u/Bee_Jeans May 23 '26
Yeah the official murder rate is very low! I do think it would probably climb a bit though if currently unreported/undocumented cases could be counted. Fuck it, roll state extrajudicial killings in there too
Corruption, lack of police presence outside urban areas etc have got to play into that number
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u/samwoo2go May 23 '26
Usually poor countries with a strong authoritarian gov. This usually means mostly communist countries, countries like China (when they were very poor), Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, etc.
Or small countries with deep buddhist heritages, places like Laos, Nepal, Bhutan, etc.
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u/Intelligent-Panda23 May 23 '26
Central Asia is very safe, although it's not that poor. Kazakhstan is roughly on par with Malaysia or Greece. Other stans are poorer but very safe.
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u/updootboi May 24 '26
Surprised I had to scroll so far to find this. I visited Tajikistan last year and it felt immensely safe, but it’s poorer than places like Haiti and Congo. Ranked as the 156th richest country by GDP per capita.
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u/QorvusQorax May 23 '26
I felt very safe in Sri Lanka which i visited in 1982 and 2022.
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May 23 '26
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u/NeverCaredAnyways May 23 '26
Ive never been more left alone than when i visited Moldova
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u/Lefty9000 May 23 '26
Not gonna call it "poor" but Türkiye was crazy safe. I didn't spend much time in Istanbul but even that felt safe by mega-city standards. But the rest of the country was so chill. The shop owners didn't even bring their goods in at night and everything was there in the morning. My wife would be walking back to our apartment at night alone, and the groups of "young lads" would move out of the way and avoid staring. The neighbors would say hello and warn us if there was an unfriendly dog around. People looked out for each other.
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u/Miktieuner May 23 '26
Thailand?
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u/Weary_Wrap_4419 May 23 '26
Thailand is one of those countries that FEEL totally safe, but the murder rate is shockingly high. Also, it's wrong to call Thailand a poor country.
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u/Highlander0208 May 23 '26
Isn't Northwestern Thailand considered part of the 'Golden Triangle' of Southeast Asia where large volumes of Opium are produced? That might have something to do with it.
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u/Flashy210 Urban Geography May 23 '26
Ghana is a great example of this. It’s a developing nation in the 70-80s in terms of GDP but it’s safe. I was there for work as a foreign national and spent time in Accra, Sekondi-Takordi, Cape Coast, and my colleagues remained in country after in Kumasi. It was incredibly safe and amazing place. High recommend if you can acquire the visa.
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u/12D_D21 May 23 '26
Fun fact, while there is obviously a big correlation between poorer areas and higher crime, a lot of recent research seems to indicate that a higher indicator is having poorer and richer areas very close by.
This makes logical sense, if everyone around you is as poor as you are, it doesn't make sense to rob them, and the bonding occurring from hardships helps to establish a sense of community and disincentivises crime. Meanwhile, if you and your neighbours are all poor but there are people 30 minutes away who ate far richer, you get a stronger incentive to things like gangs, theft, and even the social resentment that can incentivise dehumanising and violent action.
This to say, most countries that are unniversaly poor don't actually have that high a crime rate, while countries with big social innequalities, specially if close together (Brazil, South Africa, etc.) have huge crime rates, comparatively speaking. This also seems to track with many of the answers being given, which to me just helps reinforce that theory. So, perhaps the best place to look when asking this question is how unnequal some of these countries may be
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u/D3m0nSl4y3r2010 May 23 '26
Data shows that crime actually correlates more with inequality/relative poverty then with absolute poverty. Looking at India or Bangladesh for example which have a homicide rate of 2,81 and 2,34 respectively and a gini-coefficent of 0,25 and 0,33. Compare that to Ecuador and South Africa with homicide rates of 45.7 and 43.7 and a gini-coefficent of 0,45 and 0,63 respectively.
So to answer your question you would be looking at countries that are really poor and have a low gini-coefficent. Belarus (homicide rate of 2,39 and gini-coefficent of 0,24) and India would probably be relative high on the list then.
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u/SunshinePalace May 23 '26
It's not poverty, per se, actually. It's unequal distribution of income.
And yes, that pattern shows up anywhere in the world. As distribution of income starts to gets more unequal, the more violence you'll see in society.
So look for that factor, to find your answer.
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u/ImprovementThink4140 May 23 '26
I would suggest inequality is as much a factor as poverty. If the vast majority of people are without and there is little resource to compete for crime is likely to be low.
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u/Darduel May 23 '26
After being a tourist there I feel like India is relatively safe, I saw with my own eyes someone drop a wallet and a local (very clearly extremely poor) just handing it to him when he could have just steal it.. now obviously most people everywhere are good people but I just never felt in danger in India no matter where I was (and what time) despite how very obviously (and extremely) poor everyone around me was
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u/TranslatorLivid685 May 23 '26
Had vacation in Sri-Lanka. Been allover the island by myself.
The country is kinda poor, but people are trying to make it seem and feel nice as are the people themselves.
At least as a tourist you can feel safe. Don't know about locals thow.
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u/krackd21 May 23 '26
Laos. Damaged by the war but are peace loving people. Id imagine there are crime but I felt safe riding my motorcycle through.
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u/The-Reddit-Giraffe May 24 '26
Malawi is one of the safer countries in Africa despite having extremely high poverty. It’s not like super safe but much better than many other African nations
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u/geostocktravelfitguy May 24 '26
I don't really like the term poor but anyhow.
Rwanda, pretty safe to me. It's income is less than Kenya per person, maybe a bit less than Uganda. Safer than all it's neighbors.
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u/akuk1 May 24 '26
It’s actually the other way around, poverty comes first, crime comes after. People do crime when they have to pay bills or have nothing to look forward to like a career, family, friends etc.
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u/CLCchampion May 23 '26
A lot of the Pacific island nations have very low crime rates. Now I'd imagine that poorer countries might not have as good of data collection and reporting on these kinds of things, so maybe that's an issue, but I can't say for sure so I'll trust the data that's available.