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[adorabilly]

wd40

I agree with you, I wish we didn't have to live with guns. I wish they were not around. But once that box has been opened, you can either learn the how and why about guns, or you can be afraid.

The only thing that guns do is make killing easier. I read in the news about people killing their families by drowning, or using claw hooked hammers, knives, cars. There are LOTS of ways for people to kill each other. The gun is just one of the most efficient methods.

I don't think the gun is the problem, just a symptom. I think there is a general movement away from disciplining children to instill a fear and respect of the law. And this lack of discipline is now reaping what was sown. The kids who did not get spanked are now adults with kids of their own. Who are also not spanked, and who are exceedingly unruly. There is no idea that if you misbehave there will be punishment. Todays youth have very little respect for anyone or anything. That lack of fear of punishment gives most youth a small step to do something drastic and stupid.

couple that with the how so many kids are on psychotropic medication (mind altering drugs. these are the kids of drugs that change the way you think, like zyprexia, zoloft, prozac, and ritalin). You have a whole generation of kids who have been given medication instead of learning how to deal with their issues. Something I have paid attention to is that 95% of the school shooters have been taking anti depression/anti anxiety drugs.... nice correlation don't you think?

[globalnomad2]

As I mentioned before, however, violent crime in the US is certainly not a continuous upward line on a graph. During the 1990s and up to last year or so, crime was way down to 1960s levels or before. There are many factors, but in general it seems to coincide with the ups and downs of the economy.

[veiledsentiments]

I have to make a comment about the validity of the stories of crime being down in at least one major metropolitan area of the US. In the 70's and 80's in the Washington DC area all you heard was that we were the murder capital of the country and there was mention in the papers now and again of a shooting in the bad neighborhoods.

Then in the 90's when I was in the process of selling some real estate that my renters had trashed... which took a year of my time... every day in the paper there would be a list of the murders the night before. There were not just a couple every night in the inner city, but almost daily in the supposedly safe suburbs. When they got to the end of the year, they would trumpet about how crime and murder was way down from those old days and throw out this number... which had no relationship to the number that the newspapers had reported daily. In fact, it was a fraction of the number... a small fraction.

Since that year, I have decided to NEVER trust any government reported crime figures in the US. I now assume that it has the same validity as the news they give us on Iraq... in other words, little relationship to reality.

But to be fair, there is an under-reporting of the problems of the Gulf too.

VS

[Stephen Jones]

[Milwaukiedave]

I know I'm going to get pummeled for this, but can we stay on the subject of how safe it is in UAE please?

I'm really curious to hear people's experiences. From most of what I've heard so far as long as you demostrate common sense you'll be fine.

However, I'm still curious if anyone has ever experienced a problem while living there.

[globalnomad2]

If we want to use anecdotes, then many people say it's safe nowadays to ride the NY subways compared the the 1980s. In any case, I'll go ahead and stand by my anecdotal narrative earlier in which I mentioned that in my college town, nobody had to lock their doors, and the only time I've been in any sense in danger was one time in Luxembourg city and one time in Jeddah, although I fully realize such anecdotes do not support national statistics. And I'll stand by my report that I never felt unsafe in the U.S., because I never lived in a bad neighborhood and very seldom needed to pass through one. VS can talk about how bullets are flying through the suburbs, but not in any suburb I've lived in.

What does not get reported in the Middle East may fill volumes, however. In Jeddah, one of the Filipino maintenance guys from our compound got raped and murdered but as soon as the police found out that the last people he was seen with were several Saudi men, the case was dropped. Saudis are, of course, infallible and cannot and do not commit crimes vis-a-vis foreigners.

Making it up about crime rates and the economy? As far as I know, increased crimes rates usually accompany deteriorating national (or local) economies and vice versa. Or, at least, I was under that impression from studies I thought I'd seen cited, and from common sense, as greater unemployment leads to greater desperation for those who fall through the cracks.

[Stephen Jones]

[veiledsentiments]

Milwaukeedave,

If you are here long, you will find that staying on topic tends to be a circular affair.

As to crime in the Gulf... I would generalize and say that violent crimes as we would describe them are normally within a family... and punished or not by other family members. It rarely affects us directly... but expat maids can be caught up in it. This stuff never gets in the papers.

I have had things taken from my car... tapes... and the old cruddy floormats. That is the total contact that I have had with theft personally or from the people that I worked with in over 10 years in that part of the world. With tourism and large numbers of very poorly paid workers, even petty theft is still relatively rare. I suspect that the growth of tourism has meant more pockets have been picked, but no one that I have known.

As had been said repeatedly on these boards over the years... your only real danger is the traffic.

VS

[globalnomad2]

Agreed, VS. One caveat, however. The percentage of Filipina housemaids that get (or have gotten) raped in Kuwait and KSA seems to be extremely high...unless things have improved drastically since I left Saudi in 1996. I say "Filipina" without mentioning others because I am familiar with the Filipino communities in the Gulf.

[veiledsentiments]

That is why I mentioned the expat maids. We have all read those weekly lists of the latest "reverters to Islam" which are predominantly women... the vast majority of which are maids who have been made pregnant by someone within the employer's family... normally rape... and they can only stay with the baby if they convert. One of the many dirty little secrets of the abuse of the servant class in the Gulf.

But this is not a danger that affects western expats except to make us angry when we hear about it.

VS

[WD40]

Crime is beginning to enter the UAE - murder (between men usually due to money or passion) are being reported in the gulf news weekly. There are also more robberies though very little in comparison to other countries. 5 cars were stolen yesterday from one street in Abu Dhabi - mostly land Cruisers and Lexus - which was very unusual. In terms of violent crimes etc... there is very little here. If your priority is safety then the UAE is a safe bet.

[Iamherebecause]

[globalnomad2]

Step. Jones: You asked me to cite a source or two...I haven't done any serious searching but just did a quick Google...and I don't say this is definitive research; I just repeat that I've seen such sources before that tend to suggest that crime rates decrease with a booming economy and increase with serious recessions. http://www.moralityindex.com/crime.html

[Gauguin]

I had a young Emirati cut up in front of me at a U Turn; I was not rude to him by any Western standards. I called him a idiot. There's no way he could have heard me through two windows and across a street; but on seeing a westerner shouting at him he followed me and using his car forced me to stop at the road side, in full view of shoppers and other drivers. He then leaped from his car with an iron bar and began renting his anti Western aggression on my car, smashing a window and putting large dents in the body work. I stayed in my car and revised it into his car causing enough damage to ensure he would need a police report to get it repaired. I then drove off and on arriving home called the police. After hours in the police station he agreed to pay for the damage if no charges were pressed. The police called him a poor confused boy, all 6 foot + of him and were not interested in the fact that he was driving round with a crowbar on his back seat.

It's not uncommon here to hear of Filipina and Indian women to be pulled into cars, taken to a deserted spot and raped. I had a good friend who was dragged into a car, when the local saw she was on her period; he simple flipped her over and sodomised her.

I�ve seen a drunken local slap a barmaid for handing over a packet of cigarettes and not removing the wrapper, start fights over small traffic knocks and shout F*** off to expats while passing in cars.

gauguin

[globalnomad2]

I get pestered with catcalls and kissing noises all the time when I'm jogging--and I'm a man, and not a particularly young one. And some Arab male joggers wear shorts too, so it's not the shorts (and mine are conservative. Besides, it's 105 degrees outside even after sundown!) We apologists here with vested interests in claiming how much better life in the Gulf supposedly is, because our rice bowl is filled here, need a reality check sometimes. In the US, Europe, Japan and Malaysia, no one EVER bothered me while I was jogging. I suppose one option is to pay the money and hit the hotel fitness gyms...but I hate treadmills. And I STILL got stupid noises and comments from Arab men in the Corniche Hyatt locker room in Dubai.

Not that all this is a big deal; I'm a big boy and can take care of myself; lately I've been jogging in a dark parking lot at night with all the other joggers who like to remain fairly invisible.