Friday, April 08, 2011
(graphic: bigoo.ws)
Peace is in short supply in many Southern states, while the Northeast is brimming with it.
The Institute for Economics & Peace, producer of the Global Peace Index, has published its first United States Peace Index to demonstrate which areas of the country are succeeding—and failing—at maintaining (what else) a peaceful existence.
The Institute computed their rankings using five measures: 1) homicide rate. 2) violent crime rate; 3) ratio of police to population; 4) percentage of population in jail; and 5) availability of small arms. The last category was given far less weight than the other four.
Those states with their work cut out are (in order of least peaceful) are Louisiana, Tennessee, Nevada, Florida, and Alabama. Louisiana was ranked at the bottom of the index in large part because it leads the nation in incarceration rate and murders, and has too much crime overall.
At the other end of the rankings is Maine, rated No. 1 for its low rate of violent crime, people in jail and number of police officers. The other top 5 states are New Hampshire, Vermont, Minnesota and North Dakota.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
United States Peace Index (Institute for Economics & Peace) (pdf)
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