But even Panama has seen its murder rate double in the past four years.
The murder rate in Russia is three or four times higher than in New York City.
Back in January, Nagin promised to make lowering the murder rate a top priority.
And, the murder rate in Chicago is 29% higher than it is in Houston.
The murder rate, to which the suicide rate tends to be related, has fallen.
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Compared with Medellin, the capital is calm: its murder rate has more than halved since 1993.
But normal, in Jamaica, means violent: Jamaica has a murder rate 20 times that of London.
Jamaica suffers the planet's second-highest murder rate, and St Kitts and Nevis ranks third.
Nevada, with 45 ten-thousandths of a percent, had the highest gun murder rate per population.
The murder rate in Colombia last year fell to its lowest level in two decades.
Unfortunately, at least so far, the measures seem to have had little impact on the murder rate.
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According to the UN, South Africa has the second highest per capita murder rate in the world.
The murder rate is a horrifying 125 per 100, 000 people, second only to nearby Itupiranga, with 160.6.
He also notes that the city has the lowest murder rate of any major city in the country.
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By comparison, New York City's murder rate in 2006 was 7.3 per 100, 000 people, according to FBI statistics.
South Africa has the world's highest murder rate: 115 per 100, 000 population, compared with 23 in second-place Brazil.
Mexico's overall murder rate, which doesn't distinguish between drug-related and common crimes, also seems to be inching down.
It hit a low in 1999, but since then, the murder rate has more than doubled, according to Scharf.
Like many cities across the United States, New Orleans' murder rate peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The murder rate in Caracas is one of the highest in the world.
Guatemala has a high murder rate - put at 45 per 100, 000 in a 2011 World Bank report.
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The result was an urban revolution: the murder rate fell by 67%, tourists returned and the private sector boomed.
New York City has routinely had the lowest per capita murder rate in the nation for several decades.
Better policing has contributed to a fall in the state's murder rate (though it did tick slightly upwards last year).
Their battles are largely behind a rise in Cucuta's murder rate of 87% in the first half of the year.
Crime went down three years in a row, and the murder rate in 1996 was the lowest for 21 years.
The city's violent-crime epidemic shows no signs of waning, with a murder rate far ahead of its nearest American rival.
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In other cases, we relied on expert opinion, like in linking New Orleans' leading murder rate to its illicit drug trade.
But it's home to some 57 active gangs, and in 2005 the city's murder rate jumped by more than 70 percent.
In 2004, the estimated murder rate per 100, 000 people was 45.9 in Honduras, 41.2 in El Salvador, and 34.7 in Guatemala.
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