Bonaire Crime - Our experience - Looking for input to share

[The Chairman]

Crime happens everywhere. I live in the Keys, and while the crime rate here is pretty low, I've still had a car stolen and the real crime is only an hour or so away. Crime away from home often feels worse. You don't know where's safe and where's not, so it's easy to inadvertently expose yourself without realizing it. Even then, everyone around you is unfamiliar to you, so you don't even know when you're being cased or followed.

I think staying with any resort that has full time security is a smart way to ameliorate your exposure. That's true anywhere you travel. Crime is bad just about everywhere, not just Bonaire. Be alert. Be aware.

 

[RhodeDiver]

Sounds like when I had my house broken into here in Rhode Island. The cop took a report, but it was pretty much understood nothing much would be done about it.

 

[salth2owannabe]

With all due respect to your motivation (and sympathy for your recent experience) you aren't covering new territory here. Local government, businesses, and residents are very much aware of the problem. Island residents are often victims too. Bonairean police are increasingly getting a reputation for telling victims 'It's your fault for bringing things to steal".

You're right, nothing new here. What I think I'm seeing however, is people who are finally getting fed up with the crime and lack of any response/action from law enforcement. As a resident, business owner, villa owner/manager, etc, what do you do with a police force that universally views these home invasions as petty thefts. No effort is made to investigate or prosecute, and there is an attitude of indifference to the tourist that reports them. I guess I'm optimistically hoping that these folks can get organized and see/force some change. What I saw and spoke to were some motivated fed up people that might be headed in the right direction. I guess we'll see.
It's frustrating from a law enforcement perspective to see crime which is relatively easy to solve and prosecute ignored to the point of being condoned. Complacency has gotten Bonaire to where it's at and it may take a tourist crime event too big to ignore or sweep under the rug to wake them up.

 

[wwguy]

I sincerely appreciate your desire to do something constructive about this. I just don't understand what you (we) can communicate to Bonairean community leaders to affect positive change. They know this is happening. Everyone who lives on the island knows it's happening. Even if they did arrest more people where would they put them? Bonairean jails are already full, despite adding beds in 2012. A new prison with 125 beds is under construction and should open somethime this year. (There's been a queue waiting to get in for several years.) One reason police are reluctant to investigate is because prosecutors are reluctant to prosecute due to full jails. As it is now if somebody new goes to jail then somebody else has to be let out.

What is it that keeps the local police so busy?

That a popular question with local residents too.

 

[mmmbelows]

You're right, nothing new here. What I think I'm seeing however, is people who are finally getting fed up with the crime and lack of any response/action from law enforcement. As a resident, business owner, villa owner/manager, etc, what do you do with a police force that universally views these home invasions as petty thefts. No effort is made to investigate or prosecute, and there is an attitude of indifference to the tourist that reports them. I guess I'm optimistically hoping that these folks can get organized and see/force some change. What I saw and spoke to were some motivated fed up people that might be headed in the right direction. I guess we'll see.
It's frustrating from a law enforcement perspective to see crime which is relatively easy to solve and prosecute ignored to the point of being condoned. Complacency has gotten Bonaire to where it's at and it may take a tourist crime event too big to ignore or sweep under the rug to wake them up.

Of course it will. I've been vocally discussing the petty theft on Bonaire for over 5 years, the discussions originally were about the petty thefts at dive sites and the warnings of what may come as a result of police doing nothing about it were scoffed at with indifference and the answer of don't bring anything with you and leave in the car what's the big deal? Or don't go, more diving for me! Of course the big deal is the prediction of the increases in crime against tourists that are starting to now grown in frequency and intensity. I'm waiting for the next round of those original people who's advice to the problem was it's not a problem just don't leave anything in your rental car to start using the same advice in regard to home invasions, just don't leave anything of value in the room.

I've been saying for years that the police on Bonaire have ignored the thefts against dive tourists on purpose, they've used them as a feeding of the local petty criminals to keep them off the locals, the attitude has been go steal from the divers, they complain but they are gone in a few days and their complaints go with them. This indifference by the police was a short-sighted solution to the problem, the petty thieves evolve and expand their targets without impunity or consequences, room/house invasions that were extremely rare are now becoming as common as the petty theft at dive sites and as is likely this will intensify and evolve once again. Keep in mind this all started with petty theft at dive sites, Bonaire is reaping what it has sown, the next few years is going to get much worse, this all eventually leads to the next evolution which is violent crime. The thieves keep testing the waters seeing where the limits are and what the consequences are, the police set those limits and until they crack down on this starting with the origins of the petty thefts at diving sites this will just keep getting worse.

It's no secret that Bonaire is small and there is a social system in place where the judicial system picks and chooses prosecutions. When a police officer or a judge faces their cousin if they arrest or prosecute them they have to deal with the wrath of their family members, their sister-in-law and mother-in-law are going to be pissed, "Why you arrest Luke? He a good boy! He's just trying to get by, those tourists are rich American's they won't miss it anyways! What you forget all the mischief you got into as a boy? You let him go!" that problem in their society is a big issue to overcome.

 

[salth2owannabe]

I appreciate the comments-
As we've mentioned the comments regarding Bonaire's crime on dive travelers is nothing new here. I also don't really have grand aspirations that I'm going to change the world. Some of my motivation for posting my experience is to remind the community here to not get complacent. We've all seen the posts here where people mention how many years they have been going to Bonaire without incident. I've never really had any issues in past trips either and if you go back and look at my Bonaire posts you can probably find some comments of indifference to the whole topic. One thing that stood out to me is that after our incident and discussing it with others how much more prevalent this type of crime was that was being kept quiet. While discussing the crimes against travelers I told locals, and those in the tourist industry in general, about this topic popping up commonly on ScubaBoard. It was surprising to me that most people I was discussing this with were not familiar with ScubaBoard. I thought I would share some of the posts, including this one, on crime and let them know that this topic is commonly brought up in the diving community and that some folks decide to travel elsewhere as a result. Will it help convey the message, I don't know?
While travelers tend to be targeted, as WWGUY mentioned the locals are also not immune. One of the members of BONHATA had a similar home invasion burglary experience they shared with me. An individual we know who has a rental house, who lives on site, has had two burglaries at the home in the past 18 months. In one of the instances the flat screen TV appeared to be the target and in the other instance it was the renters items.
While I'm not sure that anyone could predict that complacency with taking flip flops from a rental vehicle at a dive site would evolve into home invasion burglaries or strong arm robberies, in hind sight that is where they are at and it's going to get worse if they don't get a handle on it. The locals, ABC island residents, talk about the crime on Aruba and Curacao and not waking up to find your items gone but waking up to a gun in your face. Hopefully Bonaire will learn from prior mistakes.

 

[fmerkel]

We have friends that bought a condo there years ago. There are locked bars on all windows and doors now. Break-ins in cars and isolated locations are all too common. There seems to be little personal threat.

 

[morecowbells]

Reading stories like this totally piss me off! Property theft enters an entirely new violating level when property is inhabited during a burglary! Shame on the government officials and police policies that do not crack down on these crimes. Perhaps if Castle Doctrine was implemented, these thugs would think twice about entering an occupied residence.

Last month while visiting St. Croix I was chatting with some residents of the island. Apparently over the past several years word got out that the island has a substantial crime problem. Cruise ship visits scaled way back, businesses closed and property values tanked. The down flow of this is the loss of jobs and tax revenue. The people on the island are passionate about recovering and working hard to change the image. I was impressed by the passion and determination of these people. Jamaica seems to be in worse shape. People are fed up with the crime and have so many other options. The lack of action only perpetuates and encourages these crimes. Eventually word gets out often enough that people will eschew a destination for somewhere else. If the jail cells are full there is plenty of roadside litter that needs to be cleaned up..

 

[covediver]

I don't know where you had 25 years in law enforcement, but it sounds like you got the Beverly Hills PD treatment from the locals. in many cities, including in Anchorage, for a breaking and entering crime such as this the police don't show up, they tell you to file a report and that is about it. Tolerance of this type of crime by locals sounds very similar to what I have seen in a lot of places. Cops say they are too short staffed and this type of crime doesn't rise to the level of attention. When the perpetrators are caught, they get light sentences because these are "property crimes" and it costs too much to warehouse the criminals. Its about clearing cases, not about justice.

 

[mmmbelows]

Last month while visiting St. Croix I was chatting with some residents of the island. Apparently over the past several years word got out that the island has a substantial crime problem. Cruise ship visits scaled way back, businesses closed and property values tanked. The down flow of this is the loss of jobs and tax revenue. The people on the island are passionate about recovering and working hard to change the image. I was impressed by the passion and determination of these people. Jamaica seems to be in worse shape. People are fed up with the crime and have so many other options. The lack of action only perpetuates and encourages these crimes. Eventually word gets out often enough that people will eschew a destination for somewhere else. If the jail cells are full there is plenty of roadside litter that needs to be cleaned up..

Very topical discussion and good analogy in regard to Jamaica, it's viewed as a problem child of the Caribbean, took them a long time to get there but now it's a difficult thing to change, Bonaire should look at Jamaica as what they don't want to become.

We were booking a trip for May, looking at airfares and travel times Jamaica and Puerto Rico were similar. Considered Jamaica for just a few moments as it's been many years since we've been there it would be nice to go back, quickly crossed it off the list in favor of Puerto Rico, once we were talking about the crime issues of Jamaica and how it's becoming a don't leave the resort type of destination. Puerto Rico wins out and gets our travel dollars.