If someone wishes you “safe travels” this summer, better hope you’re headed to Singapore or Scandinavia.
Because those are the world’s safest countries, according to a new Gallup survey.
For the research agency’s just-released “2018 Global Law and Order Report,” 148,000 residents in 142 different countries were asked questions such as “Do you feel safe walking alone at night in the city or area where you live?” and “In the city or area where you live, do you have confidence in the local police force?
(Side note: Around 68-69% of people around the globe do feel safe and confident in their respective neighborhood and police force, which is good!)
The countries where residents feel safest, in order: Singapore, Norway, Iceland, Finland (which also topped 2018’s World Happiness Report) and, surprise, the central Asian country of Uzbekistan — but take that high placing with a grain of salt and a lot of worry about authoritarian government reprisal.
Least safe? Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Gabon and Liberia. Also, Mexico had the seventh lowest law-and-order score, which is great to bring up in any argument about immigration, since you can use it to serve pretty much any side of the debate.
Oh, and the United States? A so-so 35th, nestled between France and Taiwan.
The report documents progress countries are making toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of “promoting just, peaceful and inclusive societies.”
(Main photo: sama093/Flickr Creative Commons)
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