Q about Vehicle break-in on Bonaire

[herbdb]

Heres a stat for you: three trips to Bonaire with no issues, vs two trips to Hawaii with rental vehicle vandilized both times.

 

[drrich2]

My post reflects petty theft of items left in vehicles, not theft of truck batteries or spare tires.

Yes, I resent the crime, and would be pleased if police set up 'sting' operations with fake 'diver trucks' and caught thieves.

But let's look at it from a different perspective. We've just seen a posting about how hard things are in Bonaire. It's well-known how to deal with most of the petty theft problem. So, with that said...

When a cop gets a report of somebody's valuable personal items stolen from a rental truck during a dive, does he ever wonder something like 'Why don't these idiots quit leaving stuff out to be stolen?'

Here in the U.S., if you live in urban or suburban areas & leave valuables out on your front lawn at night repeatedly, sooner or later, there will probably be theft. The thief is still doing wrong, but aren't you the neglectful property owner kind of leaving yourself open to it? Doesn't make it right, but still...

Richard.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[promocop]

I'm almost sounding like a republican here! SO, let me understand this. People are poor therefore they are justified in committing petty crime...The Jails are filled, therefore, they don't prosecute petty criminals...The tourist dollars that go onto the island would be replaced by others if I choose not to go? I'm not saying that EVERYONE that dives there gets ripped off, but it seems like an awful lot of folks do get ripped off! Fine go, have a good time, I'll go elsewhere

 

[redacted]

I'm almost sounding like a republican here! SO, let me understand this. People are poor therefore they are justified in committing petty crime...The Jails are filled, therefore, they don't prosecute petty criminals...The tourist dollars that go onto the island would be replaced by others if I choose not to go? I'm not saying that EVERYONE that dives there gets ripped off, but it seems like an awful lot of folks do get ripped off! Fine go, have a good time, I'll go elsewhere

Actually, to me, it seems that the overwhelming majority of folks use there head and follow simple instructions and have no problem with the petty theft known to ocurr in Bonaire. I hope you have a good time elsewhere but I'm pretty sure that the shore diving will not be as good there.

 

[lmorin]

I'm almost sounding like a republican here! ........... I'm not saying that EVERYONE that dives there gets ripped off, but it seems like an awful lot of folks do get ripped off! Fine go, have a good time, I'll go elsewhere

To connect your two points....it sure looks as if you are deliberately misreading the available data and blowing a small number of incidents out of proportion.

I'll quote AWAP here because he said things quite succinctly:

Actually, to me, it seems that the overwhelming majority of folks use there head and follow simple instructions and have no problem with the petty theft known to ocurr in Bonaire. I hope you have a good time elsewhere but I'm pretty sure that the shore diving will not be as good there.

And, by the way, the police presence on Bonaire has greatly increased subsequent to the country re-joining the Dutch Empire.

 

[herman]

promocop, I am curious, how many times have you been to Bonaire and how many problems have YOU or your party had?

 

[The Chairman]

promocop, I am curious, how many times have you been to Bonaire and how many problems have YOU or your party had?

Now that's a fair and salient question.

 

[jepuskar]

He has been once and had his pink speedos taken.

 

[promocop]

Actually they are RED speedos I have been three times to the area. Broken in twice. My brother in law on a separate trip was broken into. Several local friends/divers have been there recently and have had similar issues. Why? Are you know working for the Bonaire Chamber of Commerce? Look the issue exists right? All I'm saying is that they need to fix it before I'm going back. Goodnight now!

 

[Mike]

She was wearing a really sexy mini skirt and a low cut top, she was asking for it, she deserved to get raped. That's the mentality that existed in the USA for a time until we became a little bit smarter. Blaming victims for crime is a poor excuse for a society. Unfortunately the overwelling message in this thread and many like it about the petty theft in Bonaire is that the victims are to blame.

Bonaire is obviously not concerned with the petty theft at dive sites. It's a pretty simple thing to deter. On an island of 14,000 people, the police know exactly who the thieves are. Many Americans have lived in small towns, did you not know who the troubled kids were? Did the local police not know who they were? Of course they did, and it's no different on Bonaire. The exception is that everybody is inter-related to one another on this tiny island. When a police officer arrests somebody, he's immediately going to have to answer to the thieves aunty or mother who is related to the police officers grandmother or such and he's going to get an ear full. Plus they look at is a taking care of their own. It's a closed society, everybody knows each other and everybody is related, it's an us against them mentality, the police see the tourists as them and they see the locals as us. Better for the thieves to make a few bucks off the rich tourists and keep them from committing crimes against 'us'.

Bonaire doesn't care about the petty crime against divers, they never have and likely never will, it's unfortunately the noise you have to tolerate to dive there, not likely to change. But let's keep sensible and not blame victims for crime and keep the blame squarely where it belongs with the criminals.