Don Surber’s column today is entitled “Canada’s violent crime rate is double ours.” When I read that, I knew it couldn’t be true. Hey, I’ve seen Bowling for Columbine, after all. Turns out my instinct was correct. Not only is that headline wrong, the exact opposite is true: the violent crime rate in the U.S. is more than double that of Canada. His statistical analysis (i.e., his reading of simple tables on the internet) contains an egregious error that renders the title of his column a complete falsehood. Surber states that Canada’s violent crime rate is 9.5 per 1,000 people, while the violent crime rate in the United States is 4.7 per 1,000 people. I followed the source links provided in the web version of his column and quickly spotted a huge error in his claim. Canada’s violent crime rate is calculated using a far broader definition of “violent crime” than the definition that’s used to calculate the United States’ violent crime rate. To truly compare the two countries, one would need to compare the same list of offenses. In the U.S., the F.B.I.’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program includes only five crimes in its definition of “violent crime”:
- murder
- non-negligent manslaughter
- forcible rape
- robbery
- aggravated assault
By contrast, Statistics Canada (Canada’s National Statistical Agency) uses a definition of violent crime that includes all five of the offenses listed above, plus many more. In addition to the five that the F.B.I. includes, Canada’s violent crime rate includes:
- all homicides (not just murder and non-negligent manslaughter)
- attempted murder
- all types of assault (not just aggravated assault)
- all types of sexual assaults and other sexual offenses (not just forcible rape)
- abduction
It’s plain to see that using a vastly more inclusive definition of “violent crime” will result in a much higher crime rate. This is especially true in this instance, because the most common offense by far in Canada’s list of violent crimes is Assault 1 (simple assault), which the U.S. excludes from its list. The inclusion of that one crime alone greatly inflates Canada’s violent crime rate compared to that of the U.S.
If you only consider the offenses of homicide, aggravated assault, sexual assault, and robbery committed in Canada — which is still more inclusive than the list of offenses used by the U.S. — Canada’s violent crime rate drops significantly, from 9.5 per 1,000 people to 1.7 per 1,000 people, which is less than half of the violent crime rate in the U.S. (4.7 per 1,000 people). If one were to compare the exact same list of offenses (which is not possible using Surber’s linked sources, because not all of the categories are broken down in the same way), Canada’s rate would be even lower.
It’s highly irresponsible (and really pathetic) for the Daily Mail to allow one of its columnists to make claims that are so quickly and easily proven false. I figured this out in just a few minutes by simply checking the sources cited by Surber himself. And tough luck for any print readers of the Daily Mail (which I understand is not a great number of people) — they have no sources to fact-check.
I don’t think he was intentionally trying to mislead people, I think it was just ideological blindness. He found some numbers that he thought supported his views and he didn’t bother to look at those numbers carefully to see what they really mean.
Surber wants to make this a competition between the U.S. and our neighbors to the north, which is pretty ridiculous. When called out on this error on his blog (he always posts his columns to his blog), first of all, he simply didn’t get it. He actually has some commenters who used their brains and were willing to tell him he was wrong. They pointed out just what I’m saying — that each country uses a different list of offenses in calculating violent crime rates:
…Canada includes simple assault as a violent crime and the USA does not, and [...] simple assault accounts for 1/2 of Canada’s violent crime.
Surber very strangely replied:
Of course, if you remove whole crimes from the statistics, this can make Canada look pristine.
Wha??? What a dunderhead. Is his reading comprehension really that awful? It would appear so. Earth to Surber: It’s the United States that has “remove[d] whole crimes from the statistics.” Canada’s list of violent crimes is much longer.
So anyway, Surber thinks this is a nation vs. nation competition. He later says in his comments:
Let’s see, the Canadians want to pretend that its [sic] Level 1 assaults are not violent crimes. I suppose if we throw out enough crimes, the U.S. will be that mean old nasty nation that its critics imagine.
First off, again, he thinks it’s opposite day. Canadians do include Assault 1 (and Assault 2) as violent crimes, while the U.S. only includes Assault 3 — just like Canada includes all sexual offenses, while the U.S. only includes forcible rape.
But moving on, “that mean old nasty nation?” What a schmuck. It all comes down to hating America for The Surb. This reminds me of something I read this morning:
It’s all very silly. But it does get us to the thing that really bugs my tits about the Foreign Policy Community or Clerisy or whatever. And that is what appears to be an overwhelming impulse to ascribe agency to abstract categorical concepts as opposed to specific actors. What I mean is, well, Goodness Inheres in America, in its Founding Documents, in Its Spirit… well, maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, and how could you tell either way anyway, but what the hell does that have to do with why American politicians do certain things at certain times?
This is what Surber’s doing — see, if the U.S. has high rates of violent crime, that makes the nation mean and nasty. Funny, but I thought it was individuals who committed crimes, not “the nation.”
Also, what’s this crap about “Canadians want[ing] to pretend” that simple assault isn’t a violent crime? The issue isn’t who has a better definition of “violent crime.” That’s irrelevant to this discussion, though it’s certainly an interesting issue to think about. Ponder this: Canada’s crime statisticians consider all sexual offenses to be crimes of violence, while the only sexual offense considered to be a crime of violence by the United States (the F.B.I.) is forcible rape. Also, how are Assaults 1 & 2 not violent crimes? Abduction? I’d say that’s pretty violent.
But that’s an entirely different discussion. The relevant point is a simple one — if you’re comparing rates of violent crime in different countries, you need to use the same definition of “violent crime,” whatever offenses that definition includes. It’s not rocket surgery.
Here’s what leaves me shaking my head just about every time I read anything Surber writes: If I made as many mistakes as he does, had reading comprehension skills as poor as his, and demonstrated such an uncanny ability to misunderstand simple logic, I’d lose my job. In contrast, Surber buys Mustangs with his idiocy.
NOOOO SHIT! The really sad part is that it only took 15 min.s to shoot this crap down. It seems he called me stupid. I don’t like that. That’s why I wrote a letter to the editor pointing out his crap. We’ll see if they print it.
People like Surber get away with this shit because people who know better tend to not call ‘em on it. Good for you for spreading the word, R-Red. If he can’t defend his ideology, it must not be much of an ideology. The comment-deleting Fascist bastard!!
I wrote a letter to the editor too. They called to verify my identity, so I don’t know if that means they’ll be printing it or what. I was just sad that the call didn’t come from Surber. That would’ve made my day.
Just how dumb and/or dishonest do you have to be to make an analogical category error of that magnitude? This is just yet more proof that logic/rhetoric and prob/stat ought to be required courses for every high school student in the country.
The phrase “not even wrong” comes immediately to mind. Jeebus.
[BTW, if they called you, they're going to publish your letter. They wouldn't bother, otherwise.]
The verification call is the first step. Then they decide how much room they have. But at least your doing better than me - no call yet.
Pretty likely you’ll be printed if they called you. I don’t know how it works at the DM, but that’s what it’s like at the G.
Looking forward to it.
Dan, I’ve gone back and forth about whether Surber is actually stupid or just dishonest. He’s both, of course, but at this point I think it’s safe to say his stupidity exceeds his dishonesty.
Bill, don’t get your hopes up too much. My letter is a much drier (and shorter) version of this blog post. I figured calling him a dunderhead would eliminate any chance of my letter being printed.
Since it probably won’t see print, here’s my letter:
Editor,
After reading Don Surber’s column on Aug 23 about how Canadian and Norwegian violent crime rates are higher than the United States, I did a little online research that confirmed my doubts in both his conclusions and the ‘facts’ he used to get there.
First of all, stating that the comeback of polar bears proves that global warming is a myth is a travesty of logic. Polar bear hunting has not always been illegal in Norway and the implementation of this law was obviously beneficial to the bear. And to compare polar bears which view humans as food, and therefore eat them, to black bears in West Virginia that are inherently fearful of people, which has resulted in few if any attacks that I’m aware of, is just plain silly.
Next came the crime rate garbage. The very web sites he has cited show that all three countries use different criteria in each category cited. For instance, Canada’s “Level 1″ assault, comparable to our “aggravated assault”, includes “impeding a person while wearing an imitation weapon” which could be simple battery in the United States. As a reader of Mr. Surber’s blog pointed out, a far less subjective comparison of murder rates - not much debate on that definition - shows us the ‘winner’ by double Canada and five to one over Norway.
Mr. Suber’s column was just another example of the Daily Mail’s editorial policy of playing on it’s readers’ fears. Build more prisons or the criminals will get you. Deport the illegal immigrants or the Mexican criminals will get you. Continue the war in Iraq or we will be living under sharia law. Give your kid a rifle or he or she will be eaten by a bear. It is cheap trick tactics and should not be allowed to continue.
But I’m not surprised because I’ve been paying attention.
Mr. Surber should have to print a retraction of his ‘facts’.
I didn’t even touch the nonsense about polar bears. I also didn’t address his discussion of the prison population, even though it was in error as well. I was trying to keep it short.
But since I can be long-winded on my blog, I’ll point out that Surber claimed in his column that:
He’s such a sloppy writer. It’s estimated that around 20% of inmates in state prisons are there for drug offenses, but somewhere from 50-60% of federal inmates are there for drug offenses. About half of state prisoners are there for violent offenses, while somewhere around 15% of federal inmates are there for violent offenses.
Of course, he also loves a strawman. “The idea that nonviolent criminals should walk or serve on home confinement is laughable.” Okay, so who’s arguing that?
Jay, just a correction — Canada’s Assault 3 is aggravated assault. Assault 1 is simple assault (which accounts for about 60% of Canada’s violent crime).
Your right. I sit corrected. Guess I was as sloppy as him.
Math is hard.
I couldn’t even get past the polar bear thing. First, I was like “What the fuck is this?” besides the stupidest argument against global warming I’ve ever heard (and I’ve heard some good ones from the teenagers I work with). And second, I failed to see the correlation between it and the US/Canada crime rate and wondered when the hell he was going to get to the point.
I usually ignore Surber, though, because stupid people require too much of my time as it is.
I got the call from Daily Mail on Monday. I told the very nice lady that I had gotten one part wrong factually and that they could print it as is, sans error, or not at all - up to them. Very Nice Lady said she would delete erroneous part and send it on up the chain.
I think Surber’s column is regularly on Thurs and there might be a printing of the letters with his column tomorrow.
Amy, you’re smarter than I am. I probably shouldn’t waste my time reading or responding to Surber, but I just can’t help myself.
Jay, I hope they print a bunch of letters about the column. They should make that a regular feature, actually — Debunking Don.
Not to make a Crusade out of it, but it seems to me to be a public service. You give him more ethical credit than I do, Red, but either way a lot of what he writes is bullshit and I’m going to keep calling him on it at least until Nov ‘08.
Do I give him more ethical credit? You mean because I said he wasn’t intentionally trying to mislead people?
Yeah. I’m not saying I’m right and your wrong about that, it’s just that I’m fairly certain that he knows what’s B.S. and what’s not most of the time. He spins. And to me cognizance is the bigger part of ethics.
I’m too quick to join the Torch and Pitchfork Brigade and I know this. Personally, I would like to tie Surber and Blankenship together, with slack rope between them, and throw them over the upper retraction cable of a P and H 4100 Power Shovel and let them have a cat-like donnybrook!
So a calm voice of reason is welcome.
Well, I’m not sure that I’m that calm voice of reason. I once had a very detailed fantasy about kicking the shit out of Don Surber that ended with him on the ground and me impaling his eyeball with a stiletto heel.
I don’t doubt that there are times he knowingly spews B.S. or times that he outright lies, but I don’t think he was being intentionally misleading in this instance. It seems more likely that he probably just read the rates of violent crime, saw an opportunity to burn libruls, and didn’t pause to consider how those numbers were derived. Intellectual laziness is what I’d call it. That’s pretty standard practice for right-wing bloggers — find stuff that appears to fit your agenda and ignore anything that doesn’t.
But honestly, if one more person tells me how amiable Surber is in person, they might become the subject of my next violent fantasy.
“…saw an opportunity to burn libruls”
Your probably right. But I don’t care if he’s Gomer-fuckin-Pyle - there’s an election coming and a little behavior modification is in order if it’s possible.
In spite of being reduced to one of “two frequent critics” I’m glad the issue was addressed. I wonder if he will link to his retraction laden column as he normally does on his blog. Good job, Red.
My next letter will be a respectful ‘BTW, some facts you may have gotten wrong through honest error’ letter in which the first letter of each paragraph spells ‘Fuck You Surber’.
I was just about to leave a comment saying that they printed my letter. Today’s full edition isn’t online yet, but the letters to the editor are and mine’s there. So I guess he addressed it in his column too. I’m going to have to do another post, because this:
is bullshit.
Shorter Don Surber: Even though the entire basis of my argument was wrong, I’m still right.
Yeah, and he did link it to his blog with a weak Mea Culpa. You know he’s one of the people who decide what letters get printed, don’t you? For some reason I find the ‘4th wall’ aspect of journalism to be dishonest. But I also think quixotic should be pronounced key-otic.
Two months late to the party here, but I found this fine blog post via Google and couldn’t resist pointing out a similar takedown of the same story:
Norway the Gangster’s Paradise?
Indeed, Surber is both a fool and a tool, and probably slightly more the former than the latter. I wrote his editor about his weapons-grade stupidity and poor ethics, linking to the above article, but no response.
Btw, his “refutation” of global warning is quite likely the most bind-bending piece of wanton idiocy I have read this decade. The only part of Norway with polar bears is Svalbard, a remote archipelago in the Arctic Ocean; and if it has more bears than before, this is precisely BECAUSE their hunting grounds are melting so they are driven to seek food near human settlements. Tools like Surber have a lot to answer for.