BritInParis

Overall crime in the UK is down and that has been the trend for many years. Specific types of crime in certain areas is up, knife crime relating to gang or turf warfare, but only after a long period of decline. If you left the UK a couple of decades ago then the chances are that crime is a lot less now than it was then. Parts of London that were no-go areas 15 or 20 years ago (Hackney's 'Murder Mile' springs to mind) are now full of hipsters and coffee shops. What has changed is the reporting of it - 24 hour rolling news, social media, the Internet in general - which skewers people's impressions.

Moses2013

Good point and sometimes it's probably just better to ignore social media.
If you think about it, there's also a lot more types of crime today. Back in the day, I remember kids playing with toxic toys made in Taiwan. Nobody was bothered at the time, but now it's a lot more controlled and would be considered a serious crime.

BritInParis

Short memories as well. There was a joyriding epidemic when I was a child; never hear of that now. Ditto for football hooliganism, graffiti, etc.. Still around but greatly reduced in comparison.

NiceOneDelBoy

Not to take this off track but it may be helpful to others in my position. My job involves analytics and research and it tends to go with my nature as well. Social media has a way of warping facts (or making them up). Now this is to do with US vs UK. Sorry if it’s too much info. But since voicing our potential decision we have been “told” about how bad terroism is or how much more violent the UK is- specifically There is a meme circulating stating that in the UK there are 2,034 violent crimes per 100,000 people, whereas the US has 466 violent crimes per 100,000 people. This on the surface appears to show that the UK is over 4 times more violent than the US. But this statement is way out of context because you are literally comparing apples to oranges.

Here's why:

The US/ FBI definition of a "violent crime" is one of four specific offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.

Whereas the British definition includes all “crimes against the person,” including simple assaults, (which can just be one person pushing another person) all robberies, and all “sexual offenses,” as opposed to the FBI, which only counts aggravated assaults and “forcible rapes.” And to be clear about half of all violent crimes (41% in 2017) in the UK don't result in any injury.

Then there was a recent article on the “huge” rise in knife crime and murder. Which on the heels of the US school shooting led so many people on social media say things like “see you ban guns and people still kill people and the US has 5 times the population”. I believe this to be more regurgitation of uninformed and exaggerated information. So me being me, I researched. Below are stats on murders. Not accidental, not involuntary manslaughter etc.

Population:
US population is 323 million
UK population 65.6 million
So it's inevitable the US would have more murders per year due to population differences.

US had 17,250 murders
UK had 629 murders

But when you divide murder by population:
US had 1 murder per 18,730 ppl
UK had 1 murder per 104,292 ppl

So the US has 4.9 times the population of the UK. And the US has 27.4 times more murders than the UK. So the US murder rate is 5.5 times the UK murder rate.

I understand there are violent crimes everywhere. I’m not suggesting that there is some paradise out there where safety is guaranteed.

Again, I appreciate everyone’s input and the input about European gang violence did spur me to research and it’s not totally without merit, but I don’t think it suggest a large overall increase in UK violent crime.

BritInParis

Good post. Something that is also often left out is the context in which these crimes happen, particularly murder. In 2012 the murder rate in Louisiana was 10.8 per 100,000 inhabitants. In New Hampshire it was 1.1. You were therefore ten times more likely to be murdered in LA compared to NH. Are Louisianans inherently ten times more homicidal than Granite Staters? Possibly but probably not. It's probably not a coincidence that LA also has one of the lowest average incomes in the US per state whereas NH has the highest.

scrubbedexpat056

NiceOneDelBoy
And there was me suggesting in my earlier post not to confuse crime with the perception of crime. You are clearly way ahead of me. Good luck with the decision making.

Richard8655

This is exactly what’s going through our minds as well. We live in a nice suburb of a very large US city. It’s really a bubble as the locals like to describe it. Safe, leafy neighborhoods, upscale houses, gentrified, and very little diversity.

We used to go into the city to explore and enjoy the culture, ethnic diversity, and cosmopolitan life. Not so much anymore. Guns, shootings, and all kinds of crime almost every day there. So now we ask, why should we feel like prisoners in our safe bubble? The abhorrent “gated communities” which are sprouting up here, are a symptom of this problem. Is such isolation and separation from community the answer?

We visited Toronto many times recently and felt completely safe wandering the entire city. Everyone seemed confident and safe there yet with all the qualities of our large city. How can this be? The UK I’m sure is mostly similar. We think it comes down to the proliferation of guns and desperate inequalities here. We don’t see the situation improving any time soon.

So I guess the analysis comes down to whether to lead a comfortable material life in a bubble without any sense of community with the rest of the larger metropolis and country. Or live a more modest UK/European life but feeling safer, have a sense of community, and able to share with the broader culture and society.

As we just retired, probably the latter with a move back in order (as difficult as that is to do). So I completely understand the original point and concerns.

durham_lad

I agree, that was a good post.

We lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for 15 years and it was always in the FBI's top 30 list of highest murder rate cities, and did we feel threatened? You bet we did but you get to learn to live with it.

We were very well paid and lived in an expensive neighborhood but the violence is never far away. During our time there this is what we experienced first hand.

1. I came home from work one evening in the dark, and outside our house was a police car with flashing blue lights, parked behind another car with no lights on. I first noticed my 8 year old son standing inside the drapes of the house looking out, then I saw the cop who had 2 men spread-eagled on our neighbor's lawn. He had his foot on the back of one, and his gun at the base of the neck of the other. I went into the house and shortly afterwards more police cars arrived and the men were cuffed and arrested, and the car driven off.

2. A good friend and neighbor had her brother and his daughter murdered. The teenage daughter had broken up with her boyfriend who came around armed with a handgun and shot dead both the girl and her father.

3. One Saturday morning a neighbor from opposite us knocked on our door asking if he could use our phone to call the police. He had returned from the store to find a window broken at the back and the kitchen door standing open. He didn't know if the thieves were still in the house but was afraid to find out as he was pretty sure they would be armed as he kept guns in the house (and they were easily accessible).

4. My wife walked to the pediatrician's office one day with our son and noticed a helicopter flying overhead. The doctor's office was locked but they saw her from inside, opened the door and whipped her and my son into the building. Someone had had an altercation at a car dealership nearby, left and returned with a gun where he had shot dead the salesman and then escaped on foot over the back fence, across some wooded area and a stream and was last seen entering our sub-division

5. A long time colleague at work, in the office next to me, had a 17 year old son who went to a fireworks display on the Mississippi with a 16 year old female cousin. They were stood on the levi looking out at the display from barges in the river when 2 youths well back from the levi got into an argument, drew their guns and started shooting at one another. They missed each other but one bullet hit my friend's niece in the lower back severing her spine and other entered the back of my friend's head and exited through an eye socket. The girl was paralyzed from the waist down and the boy survived but with massive brain damage. That was 2 years before I retired and moved to SE Texas and when I left he was in the process of getting his house modified in order for his disabled son to come home.

6. In 2016 here in England we watched the live footage in Baton Rouge from the shooting of police officers right by our old sub-division. It was surreal to watch our old street cordoned off with police everywhere. We talked with friends who were at church at the time and in the middle of the service they heard shooting and were ushered out into a another building where they sheltered until the incident was over and the gunman shot dead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_s...olice_officers


Anecdotal evidence I know but I personally do feel much safer back here.

Psyman

For me, it's not so much the fear of violence here in the US. We live in a relatively peaceful small city in a somewhat progressive state (overall). It's not even so much the individual episodes of mass violence and massacres. The Newtown massacre for example was abhorrent, but I was almost disgusted more by the response of so many Americans to go out and buy more guns because they thought Obama would take away their right to own a semi-automatic weapon. The complete lack of action by the republican congress was reprehensible and continues to be so. So do I want to live in nation like that, with that kind of mindset so pervasive in the rest of my fellow citizens? After a couple of massacres in the UK, the population demanded that something was done and the UK government responded. Sanity prevailed in the UK, but so many people here see the second amendment as more like a commandment (thou shalt own as many guns as you can). The dead of Newtown, Las Vegas, Parkland etc are just viewed as collateral damage for retaining the second amendment and accepting its current legal interpretation.


Same story with trump being elected. I don't blame trump for being trump, but do I really want to live in a country where so many people would vote for someone like that? Do I want to be working and be surrounded by people with such a distorted sense of what a presidents (or even a human being) sensibilities should be? I know politicians in the Uk have their shortcomings too, and I don't see UK politics open to the back handed bribery of lobbyists like is so clear here in the US, but I would take the relative liberalness of a conservative government in the UK over a democratic congress and president in the US anyday. let alone a republican one.


I think I am convincing myself to make that move! Could do with a job in the UK though!

Moses2013

Maybe the Isle of Man might have a job for you. Of course you have to like smaller islands, but it seems safe enough and reminds me of the Channel Islands 30 years ago.

Psyman

I've been to Jersey when I was a kid, but not the IOM. Looks like there are jobs in my profession in the mainland UK, so that's not an issue, its more whether my US experience would be seen as being valuable to an employer in the UK, and whether the employer would be willing to hire someone from 6000 miles away AND wait a few months while the spouse visa gets processed.

NiceOneDelBoy

It's been something else I've been reviewing and it depends on a bunch of variables. Although recently the unemployment rate rose in the UK- possibly coming off the holiday season, it's still in the 4% range. However, it's going to depend on your specific industry. Does your experience in the US have some intrinsic value that can't be had in the UK? I think experience from the US to the UK should translate well. I would position it more as a positive of brining what you learned outside of the UK and how that can be an asset.

In terms of spouse visa is it correct that the spouse has to apply outside of the UK and must wait until the visa is approve prior to being able to enter the UK? Up to 6 months. Is this tied to the UK resident showing sufficient income from a job to meet the financial requirement and can this time period be waived by meeting the savings requirement of $62k?

Along those lines: can a 401K be used to meet the financial savings requirement?

Thanks for all of your help. Based on what I've learned and read and advice here along with a lot of soul searching I think we are going to move forward with trying to move. Decision made now the logistics.

Kath143

Hi, I am in a similar prostion too but in OZ. 30yrs later, two young children, single Mum and a good paying job in Sydney. Sydney has changed a lot over the last 10yrs now. The average cost of a home here is AUD$1.8mil in the area I live (AUD$1.1mio in Sydney) a one bedder pretty much anywhere in Sydney is now $650k+. I only share half the ownership of my home. Sydney Is not the place we all think it is now and it seems to have lost its identity, it’s way, it personality. Maybe I am being a little harsh but I am also looking long term for my own retirement. I lost my Mum in Jan 2017 and now my father who is in good health at 84 lives on his own in Berkshire. My brother has his own life in East Sussex and sees little of him.

I am grappling with ‘do I move back’. Your words are as mine. Crime is everywhere, every country is different. 30yrs is a long time and more than half my life! For me it’s about

- what if I love back and I have made a big mistake? Do I come back and see if I can get a similar paying job?
- should I go back before my children go into Yr 9? (They have just started Yr7)
- how will I feel once my father dies? Is the pull there because of him?
- what if the cost of the move is a large financial error when I am doing ok financially here?
- At 53 and single with 2 dependents how easy will it be to find longevity of another job? I am a National Account Mgr in FMCG.
- living in the Home Counties would be best for Dad and for potential work, but so expensive. The rent is very scary.

I miss the UK more and more. I have two friends moving back this week (one family back to Ireland) and one back to England. The latter was one of my bridesmaids and a big knock for me as she is moving back after 28yrs. She is going through a site called Trusted Housesitters. She is doing stints in homes and buying a car, leaving her place here in the trust of a close friend who will move in. This maybe be an option for you. Her difference is she is an HR consultant so can work anywhere at anytime.

It’s good to get lots of thoughts and ideas from everyone. It’s not an easy decision. I have no clue what to do.

brits1

I returned back to the UK in 2010 after many years living overseas in Aus and since our return I/we personally have not encountered any crime nor witnessed any, I feel safe walking around in the Cities near by and also on long country walks on my own and that's what counts.

Benson55

Depends where you live.