Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

12. Between 2000 and 2013, the Gini index in Venezuela fell from .47 to .41 (UN’s World Income Inequality Database, https://www.wider.unu.edu/), while the homicide rate rose from 32.9 to 53.0 per 100,000 (Igarapé Institute’s Homicide Monitor, https://homicide.igarape.org.br).

13. Sources of UN estimates are listed in the caption to figure 12-2. Using very different methods, the Global Burden of Disease project (Murray et al. 2012) has estimated that the global homicide rate fell from 7.4 per 100,000 people in 1995 to 6.1 in 2015.

14. International homicide rates: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2014; https://www.unodc.org/gsh/en/data.html.

15. Reducing global homicide by 50 percent in thirty years: Eisner 2014b, 2015; Krisch et al. 2015. The 2015 UN Sustainable Development Goals include the vaguer aspiration “Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere” (Target 16.1.1, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg16).

16. International homicide rates: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2014, https://www.unodc.org/gsh/en/data.html; see also Homicide Monitor, https://homicide.igarape.org.br/.

17. Lopsided distribution of homicides at every scale: Eisner 2015; Muggah & Szabo de Carvalho 2016.

18. Homicide in Boston: Abt & Winship 2016.

19. New York crime decline: Zimring 2007.

20. Homicide declines in Colombia, South Africa, and other countries: Eisner 2014b, p. 23. Russia: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2014, p. 28.

21. Homicide declined in most nations: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2013, 2014, https://www.unodc.org/gsh/en/data.html.

22. Successful crime-fighting in Latin America: Guerrero Velasco 2015; Muggah & Szabo de Carvalho 2016.

23. Rise in Mexican homicide 2007–11 due to organized crime: Botello 2016. Drop in Juárez: P. Corcoran, “Declining Violence in Juárez a Major Win for Calderon: Report,” Insight Crime, March 26, 2013, http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/declining-violence-in-juarez-a-major-win-for-calderon-report.

24. Homicide declines: Bogotá and Medellín: T. Rosenberg, “Colombia’s Data-Driven Fight Against Crime,” New York Times, Nov. 20, 2014. São Paulo: Risso 2014. Rio: R. Muggah & I. Szabó de Carvalho, “Fear and Backsliding in Rio,” New York Times, April 15, 2014.

25. San Pedro Sula homicide decline: S. Nazario, “How the Most Dangerous Place on Earth Got a Little Bit Safer,” New York Times, Aug. 11, 2016.

26. For an effort to halve homicide in Latin America within a decade, see Muggah & Szabo de Carvalho 2016, and https://www.instintodevida.org/.

27. How to bring homicide rates down quickly: Eisner 2014b, 2015; Krisch et al. 2015; Muggah & Szabo de Carvalho 2016. See also Abt & Winship 2016; Gash 2016; Kennedy 2011; Latzer 2016.

28. Hobbes, violence, and anarchy: Pinker 2011, pp. 31–36, 680–82.

29. Police strikes: Gash 2016, pp. 184–86.

30. Impunity from justice increases crime: Latzer 2016; Eisner 2015, p. 14.

31. Causes of the Great American Crime Decline: Kennedy 2011; Latzer 2016; Levitt 2004; Pinker 2011, pp. 116–27; Zimring 2007.

32. One-sentence summary: Eisner 2015.

33. State legitimacy and crime: Eisner 2003, 2015; Roth 2009.

34. What works in crime prevention: Abt & Winship 2016. See also Eisner 2014b, 2015; Gash 2016; Kennedy 2011; Krisch et al. 2015; Latzer 2016; Muggah 2015, 2016.

35. Crime and self-control: Pinker 2011, pp. 72–73, 105, 110–11, 126–27, 501–6, 592–611.

36. Crime, narcissism, and sociopathy (or psychopathy): Pinker 2011, pp. 510–11, 519–21.

37. Target hardening and crime reduction: Gash 2016.

38. Effectiveness of drug courts and treatment: Abt & Winship 2016, p. 26.

39. Equivocal effects of firearm legislation: Abt & Winship 2016, p. 26; Hahn et al. 2005; N. Kristof, “Some Inconvenient Gun Facts for Liberals,” New York Times, Jan. 16, 2016.

40. Traffic death graph: K. Barry, “Safety in Numbers,” Car and Driver, May 2011, p. 17.

41. Based on deaths per capita, not per vehicle mile traveled.

42. Bruce Springsteen, “Pink Cadillac.”

43. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety 2016. The rate rose slightly, to 10.9, in 2015.

44. The annual rate of death in car crashes per 100,000 people is 57 in rich countries, 88 in poor countries (World Health Organization 2014, p. 10).

45. Bettmann 1974, pp. 22–23.

46. Scott 2010, pp. 18–19.

47. Rawcliffe 1998, p. 4, quoted in Scott 2010, pp. 18–19.

48. Tebeau 2016.

49. Tudor Darwin Awards: http://tudoraccidents.history.ox.ac.uk/.