Bonaire Crime - Our experience - Looking for input to share

[mmmbelows]

Apparently some people think it is

"Our trucks were robbed last June at Oil Slick. We stay at Buddy every year and have had zero issues there.
Never leave any valuables in your vehicles ever.. we had some towels lunches an old pair of sandles etc taken. It's a shame local law enforcement seem to do absolutely nothing about this problem.."

The math doesn't work. Think about it. If you left your doors unlocked & windows down, they probably only too the stuff, and didn't break anything. So, the total value of stuff stolen might've added up to...under $30?

Now, to catch the thief, and considering there's potential for violence, so 2 cops, employed for base salary plus benefits package, assigned to extended duty running a sting operation, running several shifts for each perpetrator they catch. That's gonna cost a whole lot more than $30.

But wait, there's more! If & when they catch a thief, there's no jail space to hold him, court costs & all the due process costs run way, way more than $30, and that's if there's a conviction, when the victim will be leaving the island in a few days and won't be around for any trial. If a conviction somehow happened anyway, I imagine the costs of incarceration would be big.

All this to stop a $30 theft.

But wait, there's more! If that happened, that tourist would tell his friends, and they'd post on internet forums and talk at dive shops, and tourists would get the idea that more effective law enforcement would probably drastically cut back on petty theft from rental trucks, leading to more tourists violating the current recommended practices & leaving more valuables in rental trucks, or with doors locked & windows up, providing a greater incentive for the crime we abhor!

All this on a poor island that can't even get a handle on break-ins.

The logic does not work. Even if they didn't have bigger issues to deal with, it still probably wouldn't work.

Richard.

Crime is like a fire, a raging fire starts with a small match stick, its never going to be as inexpensive to stop crime at it's most petty compared to it's most heinous. Just as it's never going to be easier to put out the fire that burns down your house than to extinguish the match that started it.

To Bonaire - Emma Goldman said it best :“Every society has the criminals it deserves.”

 

[oldschoolto]

Do a search of " Crime on Bonaire " people have been saying the same thing for years and years... The sky is falling.. The sky is falling... For 20 years or better ...

Jim...

Edited because I'm trying to do better at my posting... And I'm done with the back and forth.....

 

[The Chairman]

I am also waiting

Jim, the more you bristle against people having an opinion contrary to yours, the more reasonable their opinion seems. No need to shout them down for being different.

 

[drrich2]

You got me thinking about 'crime free' dive resorts, or how that might look. IIRC, Cocoview on Roatan is on an island and has a security force? But what I really thought about, and had to do some digging to find, was Dunbar Rock Resort on Guanaja (discussed in this thread), which looks a bit like a fortress. Even there, the website claimed private security was on duty from 6 p.m. - 7 a.m. I asked why and was told:

"Actually it is probably the safest area of most any Caribbean island. Just by the design and location of the Rock, people can't wander in uninvited. I don't know if our staff is armed - I never saw anything but I don't think it is needed. What they worry more about are boats passing through the area and stopping in and helping themselves to the tenderloin in the freezers I spent some time on the main island of Guanaja and there are just so few people, that I don't think there is any crime and on Bonacca Town, you will see what I call soldiers with big guns (I think maybe part of the national army). But from what I understand - they don't even get bullets issued for them...they are just a presence. I think their biggest crime there is an occasional bar flight on Saturday night. It is truly such a small place and everyone knows everyone and they know what everybody is doing. Although I used my room safe, I did it just because it is habit. I do that every place I go - not because I felt there was a threat. The people in Guanaja are so friendly and they are so happy to have tourists visit them and to have jobs that I don't believe they would risk losing all of that."

Seems like everywhere you go, there's something.

Richard.

P.S.: Out of curiosity, where in the world do people do a lot of shore diving out of obvious rental vehicles that doesn't have Bonaire's problem? I don't think it's Curacao, because that's been discussed on other threads, unless it's a site where there's an onsite business of some sort, and you might have to pay a few bucks to use it (I'm guessing averaged over time that might cost more than a couple of sandwiches & towels...).

My point is, is this a Bonaire problem, or a shore diving problem?

 

[Manneca]

I think I write something like this every time there is a crime post on Scubaboard. If someone else has posted something similar, forgive me. I've read some but not all of the now 25 pages. The problem with Bonaire goes back to the dive industry not hiring and training Bonaireans. I dive a lot in Indonesia and every dive operation I've dived with (and I've dived with the absolute cheapest and the absolute most expensive) have a majority of their dive guides Indonesians. Indonesians are running dive centers in some places. If the dive industry had cared (or been prodded by the government) to train and hire locals, they might have some stake in the tourist industry. Tourism has mostly left Bonaireans behind. (I do fault the racism of the Dutch government, too.)

This concept of "hiring" "interns" and other staff at next to nothing wages is causing problems all over the world. Zero to hero dive instructors in Thailand may have led to deaths in DSD participants. I've seen instructors sculling to keep their buoyancy. I've seen instructors who have no experience or judgment. I must say, I've not seen that with Indonesian national dive guides or instructors.

Pardon my rant.

 

[mmmbelows]

I can't follow your statements that the dive industry in Bonaire has left Bonaireans behind. Every place I have dived with in Bonaire has locals employed as boat captains, dive masters, boat crews, in the dive shops. Tourism on Bonaire is not just the dive industry either, hotels and resorts employ locals as maids, front desk, maintenance etc.. every restaurant caters to the tourist and employe Bonaireans as do bars and all the rest of businesses. You'll have to enlighten me to what you are referring to as I've not witnessed what you're describing.

 

[mmmbelows]

P.S.: Out of curiosity, where in the world do people do a lot of shore diving out of obvious rental vehicles that doesn't have Bonaire's problem? I don't think it's Curacao, because that's been discussed on other threads, unless it's a site where there's an onsite business of some sort, and you might have to pay a few bucks to use it (I'm guessing averaged over time that might cost more than a couple of sandwiches & towels...).
My point is, is this a Bonaire problem, or a shore diving problem?

I shore dived extensively on Maui a year ago, the rental company did not require me to leave my windows down and my car unlocked to avoid liability to damages, I had valuables in the car, I was able to have a more expensive hat than $3.00 without fear of somebody smashing the car windows to steal it.

I've had rental cars in at least 30 countries world wide have left it on back roads hike remote areas, go caving, go to beaches, never once did any of the rental agencies require me to leave the car unlocked and the windows down to avoid liability to damage, and in all of these places I've had a hat worth more than $3.00 and it was never stolen.

 

[Skeptic14]

I shore dived extensively on Maui a year ago, the rental company did not require me to leave my windows down and my car unlocked to avoid liability to damages, I had valuables in the car, I was able to have a more expensive hat than $3.00 without fear of somebody smashing the car windows to steal it.

This is good to know, I'll be shore diving Kauai and Maui in May and it'll be nice to be able to lock a cell phone in my car!

 

[drrich2]

Never been to Hawaii. From what I understand, it tends to be an expensive destination, the plane trip's long from the U.S. (and I don't live on the west coast). While comparing Bonaire to Hawaii as scuba destinations would be very 'apples to oranges,' I wonder how the 2 trips would otherwise compare? Do enough tourists shore dive Maui such that locals readily recognize rental vehicles & know how shore diving works (e.g.: vehicle will be unattended 45 minutes - an hour)?

I suspect with the Maui trip, on the whole one would 'lose' a lot more money...without being 'robbed.' Now there's some irony for you...

Richard.

 

[mmmbelows]

Never been to Hawaii. From what I understand, it tends to be an expensive destination, the plane trip's long from the U.S. (and I don't live on the west coast). While comparing Bonaire to Hawaii as scuba destinations would be very 'apples to oranges,' I wonder how the 2 trips would otherwise compare? Do enough tourists shore dive Maui such that locals readily recognize rental vehicles & know how shore diving works (e.g.: vehicle will be unattended 45 minutes - an hour)?

I suspect with the Maui trip, on the whole one would 'lose' a lot more money...without being 'robbed.' Now there's some irony for you...

Richard.

What the hell are you talking about? Apples to oranges, lose more money.... how do they compare? Well, one is in Bonaire the other is in the United States, you drive a vehicle to a dive site, you put on a wetsuit and you get wet. How do you choose your vacations, with a spread sheet that adds up all expenses with theft as one of your line items and as long as the total is the lowest including your theft line item that's the only place you go?

You asked about shore diving and theft, specifically "is theft a shore diving problem or a Bonaire problem." Now you're gabbing on about total costs?