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I have been reading AM Costa Rica online and have noticed many stories on the crimes in Costa Rica and it has me concerned.
RickRick,
We should all be concerned about crime. Let me explain something very basic, where employment is low in any country, city, or state the crime rate is higher then it would be if people were eimployed. A sense of hopelessness causes the majority of our crime problems world wide. Costa Rica is not exempt from this difficulty.
We have lived in Costa Rica for 4 years and we own a B&B. None of our guest have been robbed and someone broke into our storage shed one time. The neighbors reported who it was and we got our things back and my husband proceeded with the complaint filed against the young man.
We had food, lawn equipment and some other things in the storage shed. They took only electrical items and lawn equipmnt, no food. We learned that the young man is on drugs. Well, here in Costa Rica we have a drug problems as well as in the US. The problem is on a much smaller scale but it does exsist.
If you know of an area that does not have crime please let me know. I would love to go live in that country, state or city.
There are somethings that happen and the news media sells the stories based on crime far more then the stories based on things good samararitans do. Good news just does not sale. There are far fewer crimals in Costa Rica then there are people who are great people to be around. Come on to Costa Rica.
I’ve been reading about crime in the States, and I’m getting out of here while I still can. The US is crime central. Just listen to the news and read your local paper. So far in Costa Rica there haven’t been any school shootings, workplace shootings, post office shootings, incidents of a parent shooting all their children and then themselves. You also don’t read about mothers cutting off their baby’s arms, or slitting its throat, or putting the baby into a clothes dryer, or throwing the baby onto a subway track. So there are some armed robberies, lots of petty thefts, and other miscellaneous nuisance crimes — just go to Five Points in Denver, or New York Avenue in D.C., or Alphabet City in NY — if you get out of there alive, I’d be surprised. I’ll take my chances in Costa Rica.
Thanks for your replys. Maravilla I will assume you will not be working for the US tourism board anytime soon. I too love to visit Costa Rica and will be making my “big move” decision this year. Just still a little uneasy about all the ornamental iron work down there.
Your should see the ornamental iron in MY neighborhood in Colorado. People have 8 foot high spiked fences, an alarm system, and an armed guard who patrols the neighborhood. I don’t mind the ironwork in CR, but I do find the concertina wire to be a little unsightly, but hey, if it keeps the thieves out, that’s great.
We had bars on the windows but we took then off. I did not come to Costa Rica to be put in prison or to imprison myself. Life is good here and we are enjoying it. Crime has been from the very begining. The climate is great in the mountains, no more 90 and 120 degree weather, no more -0 degree temperature. If we get robbed at least the weather is nice.
Maravilla-
If you catch the concertina wire at the right time of day in CR, when the sun is glistening off it at just the perfect angle in a dazzling display of light and steel, you just might change your mind and find it somewhat appealing. YMMVDecorative concertina wire — now that’s a new concept! We don’t have any of that stuff in my campo neighborhood, but the next time I’m in town, I’ll check it out. I’ve seen such beautiful ornamental iron work that I was tempted to put them up just for the beauty of it.
I did actually respond to that last letter in AMCostaRica about crime but for whatever reason, they chose not to include it. I will feature it in next week’s newsletter
Scott Oliver
WeLoveCostaRica.comI”m getting into this discussion very late, however though I will attempt to add something constructive. Where I would disagree in part with Jenny is that is as simple as having more crime where there is high unemployment. The bigger problem is the lack of morals, respect, and absolutes being taught and reinforced through out society. That especially goes for the US, but still trickles down to the growing countries through out the world. In our area of the Central Pacific the majority of crime can be directly associated with drugs. That is an issue of morals and lack of character, not unemployment. It is not as simple either comparing crimes between a country as large as the US with Costa Rica. The US has upwards of 100 times more people than CR. All though rampent in certain areas, the violent crime is somewhat isolated in the US. Yes there are the crazies that shoot up a school or post office or office building, and the parents who take out their entrie family. I don’t blame that as much on unemployment as I do on an over medicated society that has been taught that nothing is their fault and there is always someone else to be blamed for your short comings and failures. There is no simple solution, but I don’t believe in just sitting back and accepting it either.
I did as much research as I could about the “kinds” of crimes committed in Costa Rica before I made my final decision to move there. Yes, petty crime is rampant, and a few tourists have been murdered over the years, and there was one shoot-out during a bank robbery in Arenal (I think it was), but I found no incidence of mass murder, or murder-suicide, or your basic shoot-out in a public place. anyone who follows the news in the US hears about these things all too frequently. The people I know in Costa Rica who were victims of petty crime did stupid things — left their house unlocked, their possessions in a car, their wallet in a back pocket, a purse slung over their arm. The same crime likely would’ve happened in any US city as well. we have crimes of a more menacing nature, and yes, they are related to the mass drugging of our population with drugs that have violence as a side effect. Here’s a little blurb I saw this morning — how many times is something like this happening every day in America? More times than we can count.
http://www.tampabays10.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=34392
Runaway teen uses Hummer to ram police cars By: Dave Balut
St. Petersburg, Florida – A runaway teenager now faces felony charges of attempting to kill a police officer after her joyride spun out of control.
St. Petersburg police say 15-year-old Maggie Jacobs stole a Hummer H2, and backed up over onto one police car, then ran over a second patrol car.
The hummer crushed the engine of that second cruiser, but the officer escaped with only minor injuries.
Jacob’s mother says her runaway daughter suffers from severe bipolar disorder and has been without her medication for two months.Kim Jacobs, Maggie’s Mother:
She’s starting to take her medicine and she’s starting to realize the real impact of what she did and it’s horrible, I can’t believe that this happened. Now that Maggie Jacobs is facing felony charges, her mother hopes her daughter will finally get the treatment she needs.Before anyone blames an untreated mental illness for this incident, it is more likely that the poor girl was still suffering from the withdrawals of the drugs she was on two months before. They’ll have her in a chemical straitjacket now, and the worse is yet to come. I have yet to hear about a similar incident in Costa Rica.
Maravilla do you mind if I jump in here.
When I was younger about 50 years ago we thought a hummer was a person who did a lot of humming. Well, things have changed and so many of them not for the better. The solution that I have is that we need more love in our families, more jobs, more supervised activities for kids and more control over our children, plus a lot of self discipline for ourselves.
We are in a time when 30 year old children are returning home and children of those 30 year old children are being raised by their grandparents. That is a problem in the US. We have developed a society of people that are more interested in what we have as possessions then any thing else. Our houses got bigger, we purchased more cars and other toys. Our children got to be of little importance, we buy their love and instead of giving them our time we shove them in front of the tv, the computer or some other toy that occupies them for hours.
Our playgrounds are empty, we have no more youth centers in most States and their are little of no after school programs. Children are driving $30,000. cars, trucks and SUV’s.
The children that need love and show that they need attention we give them medication. What have we come to? Someone mentioned morals what are they. We have changed what our culture accepts as moral. We can no longer discipline our children without the threat of going to jail. If they committ a crime they can be put in jail and beat but you can not discipline your children that is called child abuse.
So where do we go from there, what do we do, who has the answer. Nothing in this world is exempt from moral decay.
It does seem to me that our country of all those we have visited is the only country that has to worry about thousands being poisoned, schools being shot up, children being killed by parents, teachers having sex with students, a 14 year old marrying. Remember Jerry Lee Lewis, he was ruined because of his marriage to his 14 year old cousin.
What is our answer, mine is faith in God and the belief that we need to give a lot more then we recieve. Giving and loving is a cure for everything. We have proved that having stuff does not create a better world. Love for each other and respect for each other. When I say faith in God, that is not talking religion, because religions kill and destroy. I have not found love in religion but there is love in a loving God.
The Love is needed is not the one that says I love you because you love me. Or I love you because you do what I think is good. Love covers a multitude of problems. It does not hide them or try to medicate them, nor does it try to act like they do not exsist.
Real love not that groupy hippy thing, that love child mess. Love that compells you to help your neighbor, love that compells you to care for someone, love that compells you to make a difference in this world.
Jenny — I could not agree with you more. And maybe that is one reason I have always like a Latino culture because they still put emphasis on love and family. I went to a Mexican fiesta last weekend — we were the ONLY gringos in a crowd of 400+ for a “mis 15 anos” celebration for the daughter of a Mexican immigrant we rescued 11 years ago when he first crossed the border and had only the clothes on his back and a family in Mexico that he wanted to bring here. We gave him a job, a place to live, and helped several of his relatives. He invited us to this celebration and there must have been 75 children there — all well behaved (despite all the Coke they were drinking! LOL), and I watched the parents and their children and it was a complete anomoly to how American families are these days. I would bet there was not one Mexican child on Ritalin at that party. And all 400 of those people were related — most were Mexican immigrants who got here because some other relative crossed the border and got settled. I’ve never been to such a large gathering and felt so much love from everyone toward everyone. In California and other states now, the State owns your children. You are just their caretaker, sort of like a dog or some other pet. I observe families in Costa Rica and I see the same kind of respect of children toward parents and grandparents and this is the kind of culture I want to live in, not a culture where some spoiled brat steals a Hummer and rams it into a police car.
Dkt2u
Thanks for getting into the discussion, you have the gall to disagree with me. Why I never, have been agreed with (smile). You are correct and so am I, both views are correct. They just apply in other places. It is a fact that hands that are not working and busy are the grounds for most problems even the drugs. We can actually get rid of drugs.
There are some things about the accessiblity of drugs and alchol.
What took away the crime of liquor after prohibition was not the elimination of the alchol but the legalization of alchol. Do I believe in legalization, sure because prohibition has not worked and our jails are filled with people who could be productive. We have groomed a society of people that want to be spaced out and taking away the ability to do that in one area just creates a desire to do it using something else.
Everything put on this planet was designed for a purpose, it is when that purpose is abused. With out Gods plan man has no direction. Even the right we think is right is wrong.
The thing that we have enjoyed most about living in Costa Rica is that they are in the area of time so much like when I was a child. With progress they too will be plagued with some of our problems. For now, I am enjoying the innocense of this Country. Add another 37 years and my age will be 100. By the time they have highways, no pot holes, dishwasher, hotwater and computers in every house , that sweet chariot will be starting to swing my way. Living here gives you the joys of a simple life.
Crime is every where, you have to leave the planet to get away from it. Who is ready to go, lets see a show of hands. This world has a lot more good people then bad people but the bad people get all the publicity.
My 2 colones worth:
Violent crime in Costa Rica is much less prevalent that in the US, but has grown markedly since the end of the war in Nicaragua.
Petty crime in CR is omnipresent, except evidently where Maravilla lives (I always had the impression that Shangri-La was somewhere in the Orient). If you’re not completely paranoid, you’ll get ripped off. In the US, you can leave your home alone in most neighborhoods with no worries. That alone is a big relief. The same is true for your car. There’s a reason why there are so many cuidacarros in CR.
Dkt2u has a valid point (even though he dissed my Clash of Cultures post). The point is even more valid in a historically socialistic like Costa Rica, one which is now forced into a more market economy. People feel entitled, and when you take away the safety net, the jump to stealing is not so big, particularly from the white collar types who get ahead through institutional corruption and never go to jail for it. (Incidentally, the same could be said for the U.S. where, in spite of our free market mentality and bootstrapping historical identity, we’ve still managed to foment a healthy culture of victims.)
Window bars were there from the beginning, and originally had nothing to do with crime. It comes from old Spain, to keep the daughter’s virginity intact (and therefore the family honor). So in Latin America, when crime became a bigger problem they had to take it one (or many) step further Walls, Dobermans, concertina wire, guards&
You can live in tranquility in Costa Rica with no window bars as long as you have nothing to steal, and you keep your blinds open for everyone to see that. If you can’t part from all those addictive material possessions, you can live there in relative tranquility if you have enough money to not only build your house, but protect it as well. If you’re somewhere in the middle, you’ll be telling your own horror stories one day in the not too distant future.
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