PEOPLE NEED TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN SAFETY AND ARM THEMSELVES THIS IS A 3RD WORLD COUNTRY, lIKE YOU SAID THE POLICE ARE INEFFECTUAL AND ALOOF ONCE THE STREETS WERE COVERED WITH A FEW DOZEN VENTILATED ROBBERS, RAPIST AND PICK POCKETS YOU WOULD SEE THE GRINGOS GETTING A FAIR SHARE OF RESPECT FROM THE ASSORTED LOWLIFES THAT SEEM TO BLOSSOM FROM THE SIDEWALKS WHENEVER FORIGNERS MOVE INTO AN AREA, THIS MUST BE WHY WEALTHY DOMINICANOS LIVE IN WALLED COMPOUNDS WITH ARMED GUARDS?

I agree. I mean take a look at this report huh... talking devastating and I am glad more are being debated... Some steps and measures are keystones or kidney stones, well, just stones period. What were we talking about on here? Well, anyway oh the horror!!!

Pappy I can see you now walking down the street like Bill Holden ,Ben Johnson ,Ernie Borgnino and Warren Oates saying " Lets do it "

Papabouie you lokk like all those KRRAAAPP THAT LIVE IN d r maibe in haiti you coul Pss like one of them/ They are ALL UGLY ANYWAI.

Papabouie you lokk like all those KRRAAAPP THAT LIVE IN d r maibe in haiti you coul Pss like one of them/ They are ALL UGLY ANYWAI.

What language are you speaking?
qué idioma está usted hablando?

hateitorloveit, i see where you assume he is speaking. the jury is still out on that.

Dominican police are generally either stupid or ignorant. I live in Sosua where one way streets were instituted. Guess who drives in against the traffic? Well the police themselves, along with many dominicans.
In Sosua, they could stand at a street corner and collect in fines enough to give every policeman a 5000 peso a month raise in just one week, if they enforced the laws they themselves instituted.

All i know is i always hear about the crime, but from my personal experiance i feel safer in Santo Domingo. I have spent about half my life in the DR and half in the states. Maybe i am lucky, but the worse that has happend to me (in the DR) is having the spare tire stolen from the back of my car. I have been randomly assaulted twice in the United States while walking alone. One of the times i had to be hospitalized and had my head stiched up. I live in Esparilla, so maybe i don't see it as often, but i do HEAR about it all the time. If you listend to the media (or my parents) you would think we were living in a lawless war zone.
Am i alone in thinking that our country may not actualy be going to hell in a handbasket?

That being said... i think there is always room for us to improve our situation and bring about positive change. I just think that we can't let fear prevent us from connecting with one another and living our lives to the fullest.
Also, for those of you that think that arming the population is the way to prevent crime... i have to disagree. For every time i hear about some old lady fending off robbers with her pistola i hear 2 stories about people shooting eachother over a parking space or drunken argument. arming everyone will only result in more shooting incidents and unnessacery violence. That being said... be smart about things, sometimes a gun is nessesary, other times it makes things much worse.