How Safe Is Your Neighborhood?

I used to live in a small town, and it is safe for the most part, except for a couple of experiences that hit close to home. One, my mother was mugged with my sister, who was a child at the time, and had her purse snatched. That was very upsetting. The second one, even more shocking, was our former neighbors in a duplex, the man after they moved to another house, murdered his wife and fled out of state. I used to hear them arguing verbally violently, but I never dreamed it would go that far.

crime rates going up with the economy being as bad as it is!

The sherriff of our county lives two houses down from us! So we feel pretty safe!

Our neighborhood is very quiet, suburban. We have a plus that our neighbors are both home during the day every day as they are older, so they'd notice if someone else were stealing our stuff.

Stopping through with a TEN for YOU!

Rumor has it a very mean redhead lives in this neighborhood, so most stay clear ;)

I couldn't help by laugh at your comment about your dogs being bribed! My dog would EASILY be bribed!!

Our town is very safe. The nice thing about my husband being a police officer is that he can get more info then most on different places across the country. We have had no felonies committed here. The most we get is usually teenagers trespassing and on occasional vandalizing. We did have an officer stop by the other day to talk to my husband since he ( the officer stops by to all the police officers in the neighborhood regardless of where they work and informs them of the happenings in our area) anyways he wanted to let us know that he committed a guy who lives down the street to a mental institution but was released after evaluation. The guy is threatening to go to the capital with a sawed off shot gun to get his point across that he is angry that our rights are being taken away. So everyone will be watching him needless to say.

I'm counting where I go to college and it's fairly safe (especially compared to a lot of other places). I went to the post office yesterday and I saw where an older person had just left their car running without worry. It's a fairly small town (aside from the college, which itself is only comprised of 1500 students) and most of the people work for the school or are retired, or mennonite.

so far so good

I currently live in the city at my dad's house, but he lives in a residential part of the city known as the Fan(the streets make a fan shape away from the capitol/governor's mansion). Considering it is within the city limits, there is actually not much crime in our area. South of the river however, is a totally different story. Richmond is still in the top 10 for murders per capita and 90% of those come from the southside of the river where the subsidized housing/actual ghetto is.

You will note that almost all crimes (not quite all but the vast majority) are done for profit, to gain money. You will never have a safe neighborhood so long as people can gain money from robbing you in one way or another. If they can steal your goods and sell them for money they have a motive to take your things. If they can break into your home and steal your case, they have a motive to break into your home. If they can steal your identity and buy things in your name to sell, they have a motivation to steal your identity.

The nature of our money destroys any chance you might have of being safe. The richer you are the more danger you face. The more money you have the stronger the motive to rob you, to steal your identity, to kidnap your family. The more money you have the more powerful are those who would steal from you.

There's an easy solution that will not cost anyone any money at all described at

www.nopom.info

and here on Gather at Invisible Hand.

there is crime, nothing major. I still lock doors and such. The way the economy is you never know who will break and do something stupid.

crime is not bad,, we have some teen troubel yet what town dont

For the most part it is pretty safe. I live in a small town but we have had a few problems over the years.

We live very rurally but we have seen a HUGE increase in thefts with the economic down slide in the area.

lots of car break ins & burgularies

I don't think there are any "safe" neighborhoods any longer. Sad but true, crime seems to be everywhere.

I live in New York's worst neighborhood when it comes to crime, but, it doesn't bother me...having lived here most of my life.

"In the 75th Precinct, in the East New York section of Brooklyn, which has the city’s highest violent crime rate and some of its poorest neighborhoods, the police stopped, questioned or frisked someone last year, on average, about once every 24 minutes."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/05/nyregion/05frisk.html?ex=1328331600&en=4847fc517b4ab434&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

The last part of this paragraph in the Times in just a lie. Cops no where to be found in my neighborhood, let alone stopping people to frisk them...does not happen. They only come around in platoons after a killing or something to gather information...and get out as quick as they can.

They are of absolutely no use...they don't prevent, avert or solve crimes. They are too busy trying NOT to get caught in the crossfires of a crime...so they just stay away.

Part of the year I live in San Juan, Puerto Rico...very little crime there. Cops up the kazoo, but, they are people friendly...unlike, NYC's Finest (guuuffaw) who have absolutely no people skills.

Oh, on safety...I feel very safe. You see the trick is to make the criminals fear you.

A big sign reads:

Forget the dog. Watch out for the owner. Lol.

You're right, dear. Our township is very safe overall. I'm not saying totally crime free, I doubt there's many places like that these days. But I AM saying that your opening comments are supported by the experiences (or the lack of, depending on your viewpoint - smile) I've had throughout my 60 years in the area.

My family moved to this township in 1960, between my 5th and 6th school grades. Never a major crime problem. I realized how accustomed to the safety I'd become when my stepson Derek and his girlfriend Allson first moved in with us from Memphis. They were totally surprised about the fact that we could sit out on our porch in the warm evenings without fear of becoming innocent bystanders caught in some sort of crime. Needless to say, we thoroughly enjoyed those evenings, often for 3 or 4 hours at a time. I still enjoy sitting out there as much as possible when the weather will let me.

If you think your small town is safe and it's now going to happen to you that is what they want you to think. Think about it who is less likely to leave a door open, not be watching, not have suspicious neighbors, etc.? We can never be to cautious.

Pretty safe. I'm sure there are minor things going on, but I haven't personally had any problems here, and I don't know anybody else who has. The same goes for our old neighborhood, where we lived for 4 years.

There is more crime in other parts of the city, but I think that, for a city of over 340,000 people, it's still relatively low. I was looking at some crime statistics a few days ago, and if I remember correctly, there were 3 cases of homicide and 1 of manslaughter here last year. All of them involved fatal stabbings, and in only one instance was the offender and victim strangers to one another. So I think as long as none of my friends and family want to stab me, I'm pretty safe.

Other crimes, like assault and armed robbery, are also relatively rare. Less than 150 cases reported for the year, with over three-quarters of those for simple assault, and around 40 cases that were considered serious enough that they resulted in jail time for the convicted offender. For a city this size, I think that's pretty good.

I feel very safe, and I enjoy living in my neighborhood, and my city.

There has been an increase in crime in the city where we live, but our little neighborhood is such a cool community with neighbors watching out for neighbors that I can't remember a single instance of crime in our immediate neighborhood and we've lived here nearly 20 years.

I live in Southern CA in LA country in a big city. Not very safe.

I am not sure why this did not take my rate and comment the other day but it did not, anyway our town where i am at now is not exactly drime free but where I am at down in this what I call a holler (my spelling is bad on this I think) we have a quite little place where we live fairly close to people but I think we are farely safe to go and sit out on the porch when weather permits.

Thanks for posting ~ Paying it forward

Stopping by from

Thank you so very much for sharing this with everyone here on Gather!

stopping by to say have a great weekend and God Bless!

For the most part, our neighborhood is pretty safe and quiet. We had a scary incident several months ago, but the police quelled the disturbance pretty quickly.