Britons in trouble abroad: find out where you're most likely to get arrested ~ Technology Update

Friday, August 5, 2011

Britons in trouble abroad: find out where you're most likely to get arrested

7:11 AM latest techno report No comments

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Which British embassies and consulates are busiest? Where are the drug arrests? Where are you most likely to get into trouble? And what's going on in the United States? Here's the full data from the FCO
• Get the data

The latest data from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office shows how British embassies and consulates have their work cut out around the globe.

The headline figure is that arrests are down by 10% - although the number needing hospital treatment increased in 2010/11 despite the fact that less of us are going abroad.

And this data doesn't just cover tourists - but also the millions of ex-pats living around the world.

British embassies and consulates are the first port of call in a crisis for many Brits - and this video from the FCO shows a typical 24 hours in the life of the overseas service.

The key figures from the report, which bring together the 19,228 calls for help last year, show that:

• Total arrests in the 12 months ending March 2011 reached 5,700 - a reduction on 6,439 in 2009/10 and well down on the 2008/09 total of 6,919
• Arrests of Britons for drugs offences overseas were 799 in 2010/11 - almost 20% down on the 2009/10 figure of 994
• The number who needed to go to hospital abroad in 2010/11 reached 3,752 - slightly up on the 2009/10 total of 3,689
• Britons raped abroad fell from 132 in 2009/10 to 115 in 2010/11, but sexual assaults increased from 140 to 163

So, where in the world are you most likely to get arrested, or worse? Just because of the sheer numbers of Brits who go there, Spain was the country with the most examples (4,971) of Britons needing consular assistance, followed by the USA, France, Thailand and Greece.

But if you look at the numbers as a proportion of the amount of Brits there, Britons were most likely to be arrested in Thailand where they were also most likely to need hospital treatment. 347 Britons died in Thailand last year, 60% of which were of natural causes.

And what's happening in the US? Consuls there had to help 1,272 arrested Britons - that's two for every 10,000 in the country, just behind Thailand in arrest rates. In addition, 142 Brits died there and 150 were hospitalised in 2010-11.

The Philippines is the country where proportionately Britons were most likely to die and 84% of the deaths were of natural causes. Countries where the majority of arrests of Britons were for drugs include Jamaica, Argentina, Brazil, Serbia and Peru. Incidentally, another FCO poll found that 43% of 18 to 24-year-olds knew someone who had taken illegal drugs while abroad.

Thanks to the FCO we now have the full dataset - which you can't even get from their site. It includes figures for over 150 countries around the world. What can you do with it?