New Zealand isn't among the world's safest countries, at least when it comes to how safe people feel, according to a new poll.
Gallup quizzed people around the world on their confidence in the local police force, whether they feel safe walking alone at night and if they've recently been the victim of a crime.
Singaporeans easily feel safest of all, ranking 97/100 on Gallup's Law and Order Index. They're followed by Tajikistanis, residents of the United Arab Emirates and Norway.
The top 10 is rounded out by Turkmenistan, Switzerland, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Finland and China - a strange mix of dictatorships and democracies.
New Zealand ranks a lowly 37th with 84/100. It was also 37th in 2018.
"The UN says in recent years, the world has not made any substantial advances toward 'ending violence, promoting the rule of law, strengthening institutions at all levels, or increasing access to justice'," Gallup said in its report, Global Law & Order 2019.
"Based on the results from Gallup's latest global surveys on people's perceptions of their own security, it would appear that the world's adults largely concur with this assessment. None of the four security metrics that Gallup asks about, including the proportion of people who feel safe walking alone around the area where they live - one of the indicators of Goal 16 - has changed much, if at all, in the past few years.
And in some countries, such as Afghanistan, the situation has actually gotten worse."
Afghanistan now ranks last, taking the bottom spot from crisis-hit Venezuela.
"While Venezuela and Afghanistan were similarly likely to have the least confidence in police in the world, Afghans were half as likely as Venezuelans (26 percent) to feel safe walking alone at night.
"Afghans were also more likely to have been the victims of crime in 2018 than at any point in the past decade in the country. A record-high 50 percent of Afghans said they had property or money stolen in the past year and a record 29 percent said they had been assaulted or mugged within the same time period."
Other countries which ranked poorly include Gabon, Liberia, South Africa, Chad, Namibia and Uganda.
Perceptions of safety in east Asia and the former Soviet bloc countries improved slightly, while they slipped in south Asia and North America.
Despite high rates of gun crime and incarceration, the US was only one point behind New Zealand. While the survey does ask whether participants have been a victim of crime, the other questions are largely based on their perception of safety.
Newshub.
