Declining Homicide Stats

Mind Reading: Steven Pinker’s Case for Why the World Is Heading Toward Peace – TIME Healthland: "PINKER: I guess what struck me first was the 35-fold decline of homicide in Europe since the Middle Ages. Various countries of Europe have kept homicide statistics since the Middle Ages and it's a curve that plummets downward. So, quantitatively, that would be the most dramatic. Qualitatively, I think it would have to be the [shift in public opinion regarding] various forms of criminal punishment since the Middle Ages, such as disemboweling, impalement, breaking on the wheel. That played out until the early modern period, until the Enlightenment, the second half of the 18th century."

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