I have been coming down here for 12 years now, living here for about four. After reading through this thread, I decided that everyone is pretty much right when it comes to reporting their own experiences. There will be many people here, regardless of where they live (in gated communities or in upscale nabes, or just small towns), who will not have experienced any crime, other than the petty thievery that is pretty much a sporting event here (can he do it, can he run off with the goods, look at him go!). There will be others who live in normally safe nabes and have unfortunate run ins with armed thugs, as monster and several others reported, and I believe monster when he says that his relative had no obvious lures on his person to provoke an attack. I have personally witnessed a couple similar incidents. And there are home invasions -- this has always been one type of crime here, though I do think such ploys are on the increase (in my apartment block, during the final days of Mejia's administration, when things seemed particularly out of control, I had two attempted break-ins, and my neighbor below was invaded, pistol whipped, and robbed. Around the same time, we had several incidents in the parking lot below and on the adjoining street (the Bolivar). I should add that I live near the Parque Independencia, and there is a lot of traffic of all sorts of people --that is, my condominium is not secluded, it is right out there). Things seemed to spin out of control during that time, but lately my impression -- despite the focus in the media on stray bullets -- is that things have improved again somewhat, at least in terms of appearances.
But the violent aspect of the crimes that are being reported these days is something new, and I dont believe that this is merely a false impression rendered by increased reporting of such events (El Caribe has always delighted in reporting the most gruesome incidents, as far back as I can remember). My feeling is that in the past few years there is a feeling of greater license in the extent to which the criminals are willing to go. They will brandish guns more readily now than before, they will shoot without qualms, they will brutalize and beat people when there is no need. I can cite several incidents recently where there was no apparent need for the excessive force that was employed to complete the robbery. This may be the bad influence of the Dominican Yorks who have been expelled from the US, many though not all of whom are a rum lot. But I think there are other influences as well, very complex socioeconomic factors which are operating as well in other Latin American cities where the pressure of numbers and the ongoing migration of rural populations to urban slums creates unliveable conditions and real desperation.
Which means, to a certain extent, that if you avoid the worst barrios -- Cristo Rey, parts of Las Minas, LaCienega, Gualey, etc etc -- you are unlikely to be confronted or even witness much crime. The majority of Dominicans are very peaceable, I myself have no qualms wandering about practically anywhere I wish, and I rarely feel like there is a problem. And my work takes me to very dicey places sometimes. As I think Hillbilly pointed out, you make friends, you get to know people, you dont shrink from contact. After all these people are your fellow human beings and appreciate the respect and affection you give them -- and before you accuse me of being some wishy washy sentimentalist, let me just say that this is part of my job, this modus operandi has kept me alive in very tricky dangerous places, and I am well aware of its virtues and limitations. So to some extent I agree with our resident Appalachian American.
However, because my work takes me to dicey places I am also very much aware of the crime, which may give me a distorted perspective on this issue, but I am not sure about that anymore. I am constantly hearing Dominicans complain about how they are now forced to live with heightened vigilance, and that the "delincuencia" is the major problem here. I hear more and more stories about violent incidents, I myself have witnessed far more such incidents in the past two years than in the ten years previous, and I am forced to conclude that things have gotten worse. I also think quite frankly that things will continue to worsen. Though I would not claim that things here are as bad as things were in Rio in the 90s, I discern a similar pattern. Thugs here are even adopting similar methods (one favorite ploy in Rio was to cut off one of the tunnels that cut through any of the city's several mountains and then go down the line picking off the stranded automobiles. This same ploy is being employed now by a motorcycle gang in the tunnel out in St Domingo Este).
I always wondered why the rich here live with armed security guards, why one sees so many shotgun toting watchmen even in the humblest storefronts, when it seemed to me that things were in fact pretty quiet here. You could argue that the tranquillity is a direct result of such tactics, a rather aggressive proactive measure,but that would be admitting that at least potentially there is a big problem here. I think that there has always been an unspoken, implicit understanding of the inherent social c0nflict, not to say warfare, that exists between the haves and the have-nots. In a society of such inequality there is bound to be tension, and that tension achieves its expression, when it does not erupt in riots or criminal violence, in countless features of the Dominican landscape, such as the ubiquitous watchmen, the barred windows, the walled-in estates, the tinted windows of monstrous Yeepetas that roll through the barrios and shun contact. You can argue that violence is everywhere, that the US is even more violent, that this is all just hype. These arguments seem irrelevant to me. There is a problem here and it does no good to wave it away with such assertions.
Is it safe here? Depends -- on where you are, with whom you are travelling or staying or hanging out, and on who you are as well. If you are street smart and used to taking certain precautions, if you know the lay of the land and know what to look out for here, you are sure to have fewer problems. I would also say that for most tourists I cannot imagine a safer place, except perhaps for the odd bit of purse snatching or sneak thievery that might occur if you should wander off the resort compound. And even these things are pretty unlikely. If tour companies do in fact indulge in fear mongering, that is pretty despicable.
But let me leave you with this thought: the murder rate of the past two years -- if the papers are to be believed -- rivals the murder rate of NYC at its worst. NYC has about the same population as DR. I dont place much stock in statistics, but that notion disturbs me a bit. I find it distressing that a relatively small quiet country, populated by people with a ready smile and affectionate embrace, should be competing so effectively for that dubious honor.
