okay
uh as far as you know crime in the cities i'm sure it like in yours it's pretty pretty bad
uh probably the biggest thing we've got going now is the robberies and theft and probably murder are the two top ones that we have how about you
um-hum
uh well i don't actually live in the city but uh i'd probably say that's roughly right i mean
crimes against property seem to outnumber crimes against life but i i think with the current war on drugs
and all this kind of stuff i'd say probably the police department would claim the number one crimes crimes are probably solicitation of prostitution um and sale of drugs
um-hum
probably probably right if you look at it from that stand point
um-hum
what uh is there anything that uh that you particularly are concerned with in in your particular area
as far as security and that sort of thing
uh where i live no it's it's not so bad i mean i can basically leave my front door unlocked and not have to worry about it um
but i do have friends who live in the city and i think that they get a lot of fallout from this war on drug thing
um just because there are like crack houses you know on their street and stuff like this
um-hum do you live in a real small town or or out in the country
i live out in the country yeah
how far out from the city i mean do you
i am about fifteen miles out
about fifteen miles i live in a little suburb uh which is i guess from Dallas is twelve miles or so
um-hum
but it's pretty congested we are considered in the country but it doesn't really feel like you're in the country our major crimes in our immediate
hm
hm
town uh is probably robberies house robberies
um-hum
and very few instances of you know alcohol drug uh reported however i'm sure they're there
um-hum
but uh right now our neighborhood is running about uh eighty percent of the homeowners have been robbed sometime during their their uh existence in that neighborhood
wow
that's huge
and since that time everybody's gotten some sort of burglar system or you know uh burglar alarms
um-hum
uh and including the out uh the outer perimeter type uh devices the sensors and things like that it's cut back
um-hum
you know considerably but it it just shifts it from our neighborhood to another neighborhood to another neighborhood so it still uh remains city wide pretty pretty high
are they are there any theories on why this is happening
uh i would say the majority of it's happening during the day uh between probably ten in the morning and three in the afternoon
um-hum but why why is it happening
most well most families most families they are young and both people are working so they're happening during the hours they're gone from work uh so uh
um-hum
um-hum
i would say that's probably their prime motivation they'll stalk they'll stalk your house and uh look at your pattern and then go from there
so they're professionals
um they classify most of them as professionals uh you get a few of them that are a little bit sloppier uh just taking uh you know just junk items that they they can just get you know ten to twenty bucks for real quick
hm
um-hum
probably the biggest items that uh that you get in our neighborhood or would be the high classed automobiles Mercedes Volvos things that they can get you know big dollars for uh jewelry
um-hum
are the major targets guns that sort of stuff
hm
very few you know penny penny ante stuff
well what do you think can be done to reduce that sort of crime
well uh the police force for one i think they could uh definitely add to the police force and the type equipment that they use uh it's oh right now i think we're about
thirty thousand people and there's only eight officers that patrol for thirty for that amount of people which is not very many and
um-hum
um-hum
right but that mean that's gonna tend to
i mean it seems to me that sort of approach will tend to simply make the cost of committing the crime slightly higher in other words you've increased the probability of somebody being caught a little bit the real question is how do you convince people not to commit such crimes in the first place
well the course in our particular state uh we have the prison overcrowding whatever so they're giving the early release uh
right they're doing that in our state too
yeah and and it's i think what they need to do is stop building more jails and start giving stiffer sentences
uh but for the that would be certainly be a deterrent
so you think that would be a deterrent
um-hum
and uh not necessarily you know uh give in to their uh human rights desires you know if they're overcrowded just keep cramming them in there till they just suffocate uh
well what about an innocent person who happens to have been found guilty
uh i think they'd have to go to extra measures to make sure a person's guilty you know in a lot of cases course i i know you can't be a hundred percent foolproof uh
right so you'd you'd rather see it harder to convict somebody
i'd rather see it a little bit harder and have a little bit more evidence uh to convict somebody and then those convicted especially of you know murder and and uh you know major crimes uh
um-hum
um-hum
to reach the life sentences and you know death penalties and follow-through with that uh
hm
especially you you know in the case of murder uh i know in my case i had my wife and daughter were kidnapped during a house robbery back in eighty five and we caught the individuals got caught we uh
right
oh wow
oh my goodness
um-hum
we went through the court system and all that sort of thing and uh you know two counts of kidnapping uh you know the the forty five to the head you know just the the mental anguish and the whole nine yards
um-hum
right
uh you know the the guy only got five years and you know he was out within two months because of the parole system so what what
wow
did you did you sue him under the civil system
do what now
did you sue him under the civil system
no no i'm not real familiar with that
well you probably sue him for mental anguish or something right and try to get money from him and
oh
well the insurance companies and all that tried to tried to go after him and they said well you know he they're he has no job he has nothing there's nothing that he has that that you could go after
yeah makes you wish they had uh still had indentured servitude for this sort of thing
yeah uh very seldom
but they give give the guy a job in prison and make him pay his damn debt
yeah they don't do that here course they pay them but they don't you don't you or the insurance companies never see any of that money
yeah that's too bad
and uh you know and they're right now they're reluctant to go after them because they're you know they're they're repeat offenders they uh they've bee n in jail before they've been released you know several times which is another
um-hum um-hum
um-hum
uh deal i hate to see but uh you know basically the guy commits you know three major crimes and uh and car theft on top of it and destroys my car he we're out you know uh you know
um-hum
yeah i i think that's a yeah
yeah
that's awful
fifteen thousand dollars and you know the guy gets out in two months and he goes out and commits it again fact he's back in jail now so what what uh
gives you sympathy for the vigilantes just
yeah what what deterrent does he really have
yeah
and i think in our in our particular neighborhood vigilantism is becoming a real real possibility uh we've had a couple instances where break-ins where the the people have actually you know
um-hum
shot the people and uh return offenders have
oh my God
and uh return offenders have they've actually waited for them where they've robbed you know particular neighborhood they'll rob one house then other people will wait up you know and wait for somebody to do something else and try to take it in their own hands course it doesn't always work out in their favor
hm
right
but uh nevertheless i think people are just getting fed up and saying you know you can't arrest all of us you can you know you can get some of us you can't get all of us
right
um-hum
uh and we're beginning to see more and more of that
i mean that sounds that's a deterrent too if you think the home owner might be armed right and awake hear you break in and you're gonna get shot
yeah
yeah that's i mean that's certainly a a possibility and and we have had a a few cases where the guy has broken in you know during the middle of the night and gotten himself shot to death
um-hum
and uh it helps for a while but then just another different set of people come in and most of the people are transients from out outside of the state
um-hum
hm
uh i would say probably eighty percent of them that are caught they're from places like up in Oklahoma and Louisiana Arkansas you know across the the border
wow
so you know people who don't readily read the newspapers in our town or whatever it's not many from the local communities but uh
um-hum
um-hum
it's a problem and i i just i think that the court systems need to be more accurate in in stiffer in their penalties would be a definite deterrent and
yeah
yeah
and uh giving the uh police uh agencies a little bit more jurisdiction over what they do when they when they catch these people
um-hum
i mean i i tend to agree with you i think uh what i would like to see is number one completely getting rid of these victimless crimes um there's no reason to enforce those and spend time and money doing it
right
and and worry about these things where people are getting hurt and i think one of the big things that you can do is to increase deterrence is um
if someone is found guilty of a uh felony level offense they lose their citizenship and they lose their constitutional rights
um-hum
you know and just a lot of things that we're trying to worry about you know protecting these people from we just don't protect them
i know like in my wife's case they made her feel like the criminal they they went to all all
i know and i think i think that's ridiculous
