On crime, and all that

I read on various e-mail groups and other sites about crime in Costa Rica. There seems to be two schools of thought: that it's getting worse here every year and the police force are ineffectual, or that it's no worse here than anywhere else. I put myself firmly in the first camp. Honestly, if I had known I'd have to live behind bars down here I probably never would have agreed to move here in the first place. One of the things I value most is my personal freedom, and I think that bars are only there to give the illusion of security. They actually do nothing to deter crime. Case in point:

Ten days after we moved to Costa Rica I was robbed in my own home at gunpoint. I had almost nothing of value for thieves to take; only what I had brought down with me on the plane. Unfortunately, that included my iBook laptop, with all of my work information and personal contacts. (The OIJ got it back, but that's another story entirely.) They also took off with a box of CDs and a $5 telephone we'd picked up at Wallgreen's before leaving California.

I was taking a shower at the time they broke into my house. We had those "security" gates on the front fence, and on the front door, plus a deadbolt on the front door itself. I think it took the thieves all of five minutes to break through all three. My then-novio had just gotten a new job, and I thought he'd come home early (I did hear some stirring downstairs). When I called his name and he didn't answer, I put on some clothes and went downstairs. Imagine my shock when I came face-to-face with a complete stranger instead of my boyfriend. He seemed shocked, too, and turned tail and ran out the door and into the waiting car. His accomplice was in my bare-bones office, stealing my laptop. All I could see was my work and how badly I needed that computer to do anything, and here he was running out the door with it. I started screaming and running after him, pleading, please don't take my computer! I'll give you whatever you think you can get for it! Please, please... Instead, he turned around and pulled his shirt over his face and pointed a gun at me, saying, effectively, back off, we're taking this computer. I threw up my hands in defeat, and that was that.

I called the police, but it took them almost 20 minutes to get to the house and by that point the thieves could have been halfway to Nicaragua. I didn't speak much Spanish back then, so I tried to get someone at 911 who spoke English and that took an extra five minutes. When the police got there, they questioned me, tried to calm me down, and tried to get in touch with my boyfriend. I didn't even know the name of the place he was working at (he quit that evening when he came home and found out what had happened). After the police left, I tried to calm down, but it wasn't easy. I had my three cats (Venus, Bug and Boo) and my sweet Lucy girl (my chihuahua-terrier mix), and realized that if the thieves had hurt any of them I would never have been able to forgive myself. I was so grateful my babies were okay. Novio finally arrived home a few hours later, and I was out of my mind with worry. I wanted to leave that house immediately, but our friends assured us that no one would be stupid enough to break into the same house twice, and that we should spend the night there, and find another place in the morning. Oh, and we'd called the landlord and he didn't seem at all concerned about the fact that there were no locks on the front of the house, saying that he'd fix them the following day. Well, guess what. Someone did break into the house in the middle of the night! We had all the furkids and the two of us sequestered in a bedroom on the top floor, and actually there was nothing left to take. Apparently that didn't matter. Novio dropped an encyclopedia on the floor, which I guess might sound something like a gunshot if you are a nervous thief trying to find something to steal in an empty house in the middle of the night, so the guy took off out of a back window, down the roof and through the backyard.

The next day, we moved everything into our friend's house and started looking for another apartment, although all I really wanted to do was go home to California. In case you were wondering, this all happened in Rhormoser, home of the U.S. Embassy.

For years, I could not sleep alone, and if novio/esposo was out or working late, I would just stay up with all of the lights in the house on. I would have panic attacks for seemingly no reason that didn't seem to be triggered by anything specific. In short, I was afraid to live my life and I felt miserable. It was the first time in my life I had ever been the victim of a crime, and it pretty much rocked my world. I got very little support from novio/esposo, who sort of thought I should just "get over it" after a while. Well, it's not that easy. This was almost eight years ago, and I'm finally able to sleep at night without jumping out of bed every time I hear any little noise. Mostly, what gives me peace of mind now is my dogs. Nine dogs. It may be that I've subconsciously taken all of these dogs in in an effort to feel more secure, I don't know. But I do know that if anyone tried to come into this house, the dogs would rip them to pieces. That's a lot more security than a few silly bars on the windows that only serve to keep you in, not thieves out. One of the things I like most about our current house is that, though there are bars on the windows, all of the bedrooms and the living room have sliding glass doors, so it would be easy to get out in case of an emergency. (I worry about these things since that one time when my son was a baby and I fell asleep with a pot of rice on the stove -- woke up to a smoke-filled house, and couldn't get out through the bedroom window because there were freakin' bars on it.)

So, is crime getting worse? I think it is. I don't have statistics to back me up on this, but I think you do hear more about it, and of course it goes underreported because everyone knows the cops will do next to nothing when they eventually arrive on the scene. Recently, a friend of mine was robbed at gunpoint in her own home with her two babies and her maid there. She was terrified, rightfully so, and her family is planning on leaving soon. I don't blame her. I hate when I read that somehow the victims are to blame for this crime, as though having something worth stealing is a crime in itself. I don't buy that, and as someone who's lived through this, I find it highly insulting. You will see some people suggest that crime here isn't any worse than in any big city, though let's not compare apples and oranges. Escazu, Santa Ana, are not big cities. I think that esposo has been robbed in every way possible. We did count it up one day; he's been mugged several different times in several different ways, had his car broken into, his house broken into. I think the only thing that hasn't happened to him is carjacking (knock on wood, because our friend H. has been carjacked in San Jose). Once we even had the HH broken into in a five-minute time span as we were stopping by a friend's house to drop off something. They got away with our car CD player, and two Costco-size bottles of bleach and a bag of cat food. The image of crackheads running down the street with bleach and cat food was enough to lighten the mood on that one.

The problem I see is that the administration seems content not to do much about crime; when you can bribe a police officer for $10 and a bag of marajuana (I know someone personally who's done this!), how much faith can you really put in them? They get paid so little, to put their necks on the line -- do we really expect them to get in the line of fire? There are solutions, but I think the fact that this country does not have an army or military of any kind speaks to the idea that people do not want a strong police presence, either. People do not want to see Costa Rica become a military state. I don't want that either, but I'll tell you what, I felt a lot more secure in Colombia with all of the military and police officers -- who take no crap from anyone -- all over the place than I do here, where you rarely see police officers, and if you do, they don't seem to be doing anything. It is going to take a change in the consciousness of the Costa Rican people and the leaders they elect before any real change will happen. Costa Ricans have to give up this attitude of "Oh well, crap happens, it's all in God's hands" BS. Until then, I'm afraid crime is only going to get worse, and we'll probably be long gone by that time. I have no interest in raising our son in such a society, and when Obama gets elected, I'll be happy to hang up my ex-pat label.