laurapasinifan said:
well it doesnt seem as bad now, but when i go out with my buddies who live here they ALWAYS take their pistols....its like more important than the wallet or car keys...
The million dollar question is: How many times have they used the gun in self defense?
Sometimes, the fear of crime is worst than crime itself!
laurapasinifan said:
why do you think that 5 or 6 dominicans who live here full time and are upper middle class or higher, have great houses and cars and buisnesses, and they barricade themselves because super heavy duty metal walls , with exspensive alarms, do that???.....they do it for a very real reason.
The metal walls and gates is for personal safety, BUT that is only a recent reason for having such walls/gates.
Before crime was in everyone's mind (try late 1990s and backwards) plenty of great homes were built in exclusive neighborhoods and most had rough iron gates and fences. It's a hispanic tradition, although the upper crust of American society seems to be catching on.
Towns in Connecticut such as Greenwich or New Canaan or even North Stamford are chock full of million dollar estates with rough iron gates and walls. And guess what? Aside from the dinner bandit who was recently caught after years of commiting his acts (he was referred as the dinner bandit because he would break into upper crust mansions while the family were eating dinner and rob their jewlrey and such from their main bedrooms and leave the premises without members of the family or even housekeepers noticing anything suspicious!), aside from him nothing really happens.
But, plenty of impressive homes are sorrounded by massive walls and can be accessed through elaborate iron gates, just like in Santo Domingo or Santiago and many other places!
laurapasinifan said:
I dont post this to really put down the country...but it is real and pretending it isnt there, is like lying.
Yes Bob, it is real.
But, sometimes tradition and current circumstances happen to blend well (ie. gated properties being a hispanic tradition, but fits well into modern security, etc).
It's important to let people know what is happening, but even more important is for people to know what are the chances its going to happen to them!
Few DR1ers have seen with their own eyes the crimes that have been reported on this website. It's mostly the "man who" types of reports that we get here and very few its a "it happened to me" types.
The rest of the fear built on this site (and in Dominican society in general) is based on pure speculation of how much worst it could actually be.
One thing for sure, their have not been a significant increase in cemetery business, because if that would have been the case, we would have heard about it or some reporter would have written about this. So, perhaps things are not as bad as the human mind tends to amplify, especially when a person is not present in a place 24/7.
The samething happens in the U.S. with suburbanites vs. urbanites. Suburban populations get reports via the news of crime in the inner cities, and their minds and lack of first hand knowledge of the real situation in the inner cities, goes off to create an image of the inner city that is worst than reality.
Do you know how many suburbanites are afraid to drive into NYC for example? I have met people in Fairfield County, Connecticut who think they will die if they were to get lost in Washington Heights or the Bronx, for example!
The power of the human mind and its amplification capabilities, especially of reports that can be sensationalized, is amazing!
-NALs