Do you think crime is on the increase in your country area or is it still all in the city?   Living in the country you would think crime, like breaking into houses, would be on the increase because the neighbors are so far from one another, that that chances for being seen are less.   I keep our doors locked even when we are home. It's just not like it use to be.

Tillerbill

-- TILLER (TILLERBILL@WEBTV.NET), October 29, 2002

Answers

I keep the doors locked here too. There has been quite a few break ins and much more theft of property down here. Most of them have involved taking equiptment like riding tractors, ATV's & tools from locked garages & barns. In the household breakins guns,money & antiques are the top items.

I think the crime is just worse everywhere, maybe the reason it doesn't look as bad in the country is because there are less people per community. I found a crime/tax/valuation comparison calculator once online and surprisingly when I typed in my county & zip code and one from St Paul, MN the percentage of thefts was actually worse in my area when population was factored in. Rape & violent(non homicide) crimes was running pretty close but murders were higher in the city.

I never know if those calculators are valid but it was interesting.

-- Kathy (beckoningwinds@yahoo.com), October 29, 2002.

Nope, not around these parts.

We live in the suburbs of St Paul now, although our place is set back in the woods, and rarely lock our cars. Dont lock the side or back doors of the house during the day, except for about a week this summer when there was an escaped murderer on the loose.

Lived for 12 years in rural MN and WI, never locked anything when we were home, except doors at night. The only time I was ever frightened in the country was when crazy hunters would ignore our no hunting signs and wander all over the property, including our farmyard(!), set off firecrackers and train their coon-huntin dogs in our woods. Oh, and the time a guy came tearing up the driveway in his pickup, started screaming at my kid because the hay inverter he had voluntarily lent me was 10 minutes late being returned (I was on my way to his place with it at the time). By the way, he was a Lutheran minister.

-- Earthmama (earthmama48@yahoo.com), October 29, 2002.

our neighborhood double locks since the old woman at the end of the road was home invaded. Lock the doors and lock and load the guns. :>) I have to give the old woman credit, she got through it with only a broke shoulder. And that happened from the recoil of her husbands old 12 ga when she gut shot the intruder in her livingroom :>)

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), October 31, 2002.

I am sorry but I really like to hear about old women shooting intruders. I'm not a smart man but I think if more intruders were shot there would be less intrusion. Some folks in government don't think that citizens should have guns. Ted Kennedy wants to repress ownership of guns. Ted Kennedy has killed more people with his car than I have with my gun. Sometimes I wonder if criminals don't have lobbyists in Washington, urging Congress to disarm the public. If I was a criminal, I wouldn't want my victims armed. Please forgive me. I "surf" the net, looking for a place to rant. I live in a small town, pop.440, in west central Missouri. I feel like I need to lock my house and it galls me.

-- Marty Stoetzle (MartyS@iland.net), November 02, 2002.