On no island like Bonaire

[Jax]

In Reply to your post [post=5145216]#5145216[/post]

What is the question? If somebody has a question that I am supposed to answer, please address it to me directly using my name so I know you are asking me.

Okay, Mike, I ask you the following in blue:

As I posted in another thread, based on a whole lot of time searching the internet, what my unscientific finds What number of "finds" did you discover, please? 5? 10? 50? are that the drug trade from South America is the biggest factor influencing crime on the ABCs with different variations and intensities of drug related crimes.
Please, tell us your top three sources?

Percentages and comparisons about the crime on Bonaire are difficult to say since like many tourist destinations there is a lot of pressure to sugar coat or under report anything negative that might effect the tourism market.

Based on the information available, the first hand reports and any other bits of information that can be assembled, it appears that chances of crime based on your personal items in your accomodations go up dramatically for condos and private residences not part of resorts or diving complexes. On what do you base this? Do you have a proper "percentage crimes per person per location"? The vast majority of the reports over the last year seem to be from people staying at rental units and condos, where there is less security and less people around such as hotel staff and such.Vast majority - define, please - x out of y reports is an acceptable metric.

Many reports of break ins while people are sleeping in their rooms, reports of people seeming to wake up to discover somebody in their room and then wake up again in the morning to find their room ransacked, seemingly pointed to some sort of chloroform like drub being used on them.Please define "many"? Also, please cite a source as such happenings would have the State Department shutting down the location to military and Gov't employees.

Some reports of safes being broken into etc... Define "some", please? I've seen one.

There has been some attributes of the recent up swing in the crime there to a gang that got out of prison and went back to what got them sent away in the first place. Reports were that they were caught and were going away again. But the tendency for little reporting of these things hasn't seen many updates or verifications of this. Please explain how there can be "little reporting of these things" but you have this much information?

Does it mean you'll be a victim on Bonaire? No it doesn't. It means your chances will go down if you stay in bigger hotel/dive operations, your chances will go down if you take some of the unfortunate safe guards you might need to take because of the crime issues and reduce your risk.

Most of this has been documented here and on bonairetalk.com. What or who is on bonairetalk.com that makes him or her a reliable / authoritative source?

How much clearer does it need to be? As I said there are no statistics compiled to refer to. As I said you have to assemble it all yourself. As I said from posts here and on bonairetalk.com This is an incomplete comparison, and therefore is an informal fallacy.

Use the search button and do it yourself before you demand to be spoon fed all the data. Geeze, what em I your momma's???

This is an Ad hominem attack, and has no place in a logical discussion.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Use the search button and do it yourself before you demand to be spoon fed all the data. Geeze, what em I your momma's???

The problem is, there have been many people do the search and there has been little of the imaginary data available to make Bonaire the dangerous place that you guys seem to want it to be. There is information there, but much of it reads like a PilotFish post and we all know how credible they are. I was not able to locate sufficient information that I felt portrayed the hellish nightmare you want. I read about crime......I think any crime is unacceptable......I am not stupid enough to make the claim that the police are doing absolutely nothing about it........I did not at any time say there was no crime on Bonaire or that any crime was acceptable........I have said that simple precautions can prevent MOST crimes.......crime exists but no matter how hard you try, it will never be the life threatening vacation spot you want.

 

[Mike]

to make Bonaire the dangerous place that you guys seem to want it to be....

....that I felt portrayed the hellish nightmare you want....

....it will never be the life threatening vacation spot you want.

WTF? Try again.

jax- did you have a question instead of an interrogation?

 

[ScubaSteve]

......

 

[BHB ScubaTroll]

WTF? Try again.

jax- did you have a question instead of an interrogation?

Her post had five direct questions for you and several requests for definition to clear up your statments

Here is the post again...

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/5145384-post241.html

 

[Cave Diver]

WTF? Try again.

jax- did you have a question instead of an interrogation?

Silly us. :doh:

No wonder we can't get answers. We've been asking multiple questions. Now that I know what the proper format is, I'll try again. Just so there is no confusion, the question is posed in red.

mfinley919 based on the statements you made below about the information available from other forums and assembled from first hand reports, how many crimes would you estimate occurred in the last year on Bonaire?

Based on the information available, the first hand reports and any other bits of information that can be assembled, it appears that chances of crime based on your personal items in your accomodations go up dramatically for condos and private residences not part of resorts or diving complexes. The vast majority of the reports over the last year seem to be from people staying at rental units and condos, where there is less security and less people around such as hotel staff and such.

Many reports of break ins while people are sleeping in their rooms, reports of people seeming to wake up to discover somebody in their room and then wake up again in the morning to find their room ransacked, seemingly pointed to some sort of chloroform like drub being used on them.

Some reports of safes being broken into etc...

 

[Mike]

No idea. How many?

From what I recall there seemed to have been a disturbing increase in more brazen crimes involving room break-ins between around Aug 2009 and Jan 2010, crimes of more significance on Bonaire than prior to that, crimes more significant than the typical continuous string of dive site petty crimes.

There was more than one person saying it had to do with a 'gang' lead by a woman that had recently gotten out of jail, it was also reported that the police had detained the gang and they were heading back to jail.

Of course since Bonaire doesn't publish much in the line of criminal reports or court reports I've never seen anything official to verify anything in regard to the gang being arrested or not. So whether the percieved 'crime wave' was an unfortunate limited experience or not waits to be proven as time passes.

 

[Cave Diver]

No idea. How many?

I don't know, that's why I was asking what the total number of these reports that you reference were.

I did run across some information that stated the ABC islands were named one of the safest places to visit around 2008-2009 and that the annual visitors to the island is now around 74k, which is up from ~56k ten years ago.

My research indicates that there is crime on Bonaire. :shocked2:

However, the incident rate appears to be very low when compared to the number of annual visitors.

An increase of almost 20k people would give rise to substantial more opportunity for crime as well. And of course that's assuming that every one of those visitors are fine, upstanding citizens who would never think about committing a crime of opportunity themselves.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Cardinal rules broken (learned from various Bonaire threads here on SB):

1. We are not supposed to say that the number of crimes committed has any relation to the incredible number of transient inhabitants (visitors)

2. We are not allowed to imply that a fellow diver is capable of anything like these crimes.

And FTR, just in case anybody is thinking of doing it in future posts, we are not allowed to bring any other place in the world intop the conversation about how unsafe Bonaire is.

I don't know, that's why I was asking what the total number of these reports that you reference were.

I did run across some information that stated the ABC islands were named one of the safest places to visit around 2008-2009 and that the annual visitors to the island is now around 74k, which is up from ~56k ten years ago.

My research indicates that there is crime on Bonaire. :shocked2:

However, the incident rate appears to be very low when compared to the number of annual visitors.

An increase of almost 20k people would give rise to substantial more opportunity for crime as well. And of course that's assuming that every one of those visitors are fine, upstanding citizens who would never think about committing a crime of opportunity themselves.

 

[pilot fish]

There is a very solid reason Boniare keeps its growing crime problem and stats a secret -it would adversly effect tourism. If divers had an accurate picture of just how bad it really is, they would find safer areas to spend thier dive dollars. The pro Bonaire crowd foolishly think since there are no stats on Bonaire crime, it must not exist. Wow! That's hard to believe.So what do we really have to go on?

Well, there is Bonaire talk, there is word of mouth from the many victims, there is Scubaboard, all good sources of truth. Every dive site I've gone to in the Caribbean I have run into one or two people with a horrible tale to tell about crime on Bonaire and getting ripped off by theives, car rental agencies, condo owners, etc and how little the police do. Now, you pro Bonaire crowd dismiss that. Fine. I do not. Since there are no crime stats on Bonaire, your claim of a perfect island ,where crime is the exception, holds as much weight as the reports of crime as a general rule.

In short, you don't believe what you read and hear, I do believe it. I see no reason for people to lie. How many stories have you read, here on this board, where after a crime is committed the Bonaire police are very slow to respond and once they do, nothing gets done? You have to ask yourself, why is there so many personal reports of crime on Bonaire that you do not read and hear about on other islands, but when you check it on the internet, on Offical Bonaire sites, you see no mention of it or any crime stats that reflect the reality of what is going on?

Where there is a lot of smoke...........................................................

So what tactic do the pro Bonaire crowd employ? Attack, vileify and ridicule the people that try to bring out the truth.