Even if the world is starting to place a little more faith in law enforcement, it didn’t feel any safer last year, according to Gallup’s latest update on its annual Law and Order Index.
Outside of a slight increase in people’s confidence in their local police, progress on all other measures of global security remained stalled.
The world scored an 83 out of a possible 100 on the Law and Order Index in 2022 — unchanged from 83 the previous year.
The index is a composite score based on Gallup World Poll questions asking people whether they are confident in their local police, feel safe in their neighborhoods, and were victims of theft or assault in the past year. Higher scores mean more people in a country feel secure.
Scores at the country level in 2022 ranged from a high of 96 in Tajikistan to a low of 49 in Liberia. Neither of these countries has occupied either of these spots before — Singapore and Afghanistan have ranked the best and worst on the index for several years — but Tajikistan and Liberia are frequently among the highest- and lowest-scoring countries from year to year.
Liberia’s low score on the index in 2022 is mostly attributable to the high percentage of residents who have been victims of crime and their lack of faith in the police.
A majority of Liberians (53%) said they or other household members had money or property stolen in the past year, which was one of the highest rates in the world, along with Sierra Leone (52%).
Also, less than half of Liberians (45%) expressed confidence in their local police.
For complete results from more than 140 countries and areas surveyed in 2022, read Gallup’s 2023 Global Law and Order report.
U.S. and Canada Continue to Head in Wrong Direction
In most regions, the 2022 scores on the Law and Order Index were relatively within the range of where they have been for the past few years.
However, scores in post-Soviet Eurasia and Latin America and the Caribbean continued their positive trajectories.
Notably, the score for the U.S. and Canada — which suffered one of the biggest regional declines in 2021 — did not change statistically in 2022, but the countries continued to head in the wrong direction.
Perceptions of safety declined most in Canada, where the index score dropped four points in 2022 to a new low of 83 — matching the score for the U.S., which remained stagnant from the previous year.
Although most Canadians continue to trust their local police (78%) and feel safe walking alone at night (74%), both measures dropped to new lows in 2022.
The public’s faith has eroded as violent crime keeps rising in Canada, where the murder rate in 2022 was the highest in 30 years. (Continued…)
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That Afghanistan moved up from the least safest group to where 52% felt safe is telling since the US presence departed back in 2021. Apparently the Taliban has instituted a law and order policy that put US occupation to shame. Or maybe they are all high on opium and don’t care!