One of the most significant indicators used to assess the extent of crime in a given location is the crime rate. It is used to guide public policy and evaluate the efficacy of law enforcement initiatives. Researchers also use it to compare crime rates across various locations and to investigate crime trends over time.
The crime rate in a region is a measurement of the number of crimes committed to said region or population over a specific time period, generally per capita per year. It is often represented in criminal incidents or infractions per 100,000 people.
Cities’ crime rates vary drastically based on the city and its location. Cities in more densely populated areas often have greater crime rates sometimes called crime indexes, than those in rural or suburban settings.
According to Numbeo, Crime Index is an estimation of the overall level of crime in a given city or country, and the data platform has its own index.
Numbeo’s index is based on surveys from its website’s visitors. Questions for these surveys are similar to many similar scientific and government surveys. Each entry in the survey is saved as a number in the range [-2, +2], with -2 meaning strongly negative and +2 meaning strongly positive.
Numbeo filters survey to eliminate potential spam, like people entering a large amount of data which are different from the median value.
Crime levels lower than 20 as very low, crime levels between 20 and 40 as being low, crime levels between 40 and 60 as being moderate, crime levels between 60 and 80 as being high, and finally crime levels higher than 80 as being very high.
In Numbeo’s global crime index list, 17 African cities were featured, and below are 10 of these countries with the lowest crime index.