Probably hits a sweet spot of big enough for sufficient victims to be lucrative but too small to have a class 1 police department.
Yes! We were just defrauded of $16,400 from our checking account by someone counterfeiting a check with all of our account information on it. We’ll get it back, of course, but I’m really pissed about it. The bank has slammed the door on the account, and I’ve changed passwords, but we’ll be dealing with this for awhile.
Oh, and I’ve had two bicycles stolen over the years.
Probably sexual abuse as a child. (long story on the “probably” part).
Car stereo stolen.
Robbed at gunpoint (with gun in ear).
Its big, but poor. Fresno is a HUGE agriculture and food production hub. They also do sprawl like nobody else. The low income brackets also make ripe breeding grounds for street gangs and their activities.
The surface area of Fresno is about 120 sq miles with a TON of outlying residential. Combine the generally low income ag and industrial base with a large area and you get relatively sparse police coverage. Fresno PD has pretty much all the modern toys, helicopters, drones, SWAT, various other specialized units, just not enough of them to hold back the tide at times. It has actually become marginally better over the years although covid related catch and release has probably made things worse.
My recent experiences were more about inserting myself into a rather sketchy situation to help out a friend. I knew I was signing up for some drama.
Thought of another time, but it was really my father who was the victim. Our first two years in Bangkok after we moved back to Thailand in 1994, the wife and I lived in faculty housing at a university, and we could not call out internationally. This was before cellphones, so if I wanted to talk to my father in Texas, who was still alive then, I had to go to the main post office and use one of their international phone booths. I had a calling card I used that would automatically charge the call to my father. It turns out that criminals routinely staked out the post office and using binoculars watched what callers punched in on the phones. My father was notified that within a couple of weeks, long-distance calls between various parts of the world had been charged to him to the tune of $2000. He did not have to pay, just had to confirm he had nothing to do with the calls, and they gave him another card.
Some punks broke into our poorly locked apartment in Binghamton (during college) and stole all our loose laundry change as well as my apartment mate’s “herbal” material. Amazingly they left our stereos and TV behind.
I wonder if there’s anyone left who hasn’t been a victim of a crime. Among my friends/relatives it’s 100%, ranging from minor to horrific to murder(ed). Among the ones I know about, anyway. It’s possible the people who haven’t suffered crime just aren’t mentioning.it.
I know someone who grew up and still lives in a neighborhood that is rather famous for its high crime rate. Her parents still operate businesses in that neighborhood. She says she has never been the victim of a crime and neither has anyone in her immediate family (parents & siblings).
Turns out her definition of crime is extremely narrow. When another coworker, who grew up and lived in the same neighborhood, asked her how many times she’s reported an “incident” to the police, she said:
“Oh, many times”
“Dozens of times?”
“Sure”
“Hundreds of times?”
“Not me personally, but including my parents’ reports, sure”
Basically unless it’s armed robbery or battery that results in grievous bodily harm, it’s not a “crime” crime. It’s an incident, an offense, a violation, etc. Burglary of an unoccupied home or business? Not a crime. Theft of a bicycle from the yard? Not a crime. Employee theft of shop money or customer’s property? Not a crime. Taking money by menacing? Not a crime.
I had so much shit stolen from me in school - elementary through high school - that at a certain point I stopped caring. The schools I attended were so rough that it was basically expected that weaker kids would get bullied out of their lunch money or whatever. Stealing crap from lockers was so widespread that I stopped putting anything in there that I wasn’t prepared to lose.
The most memorable crime that happened to me took place when I was about 20 or so. I had a cheap-ass, falling-apart piece of shit car, and I’d parked it on the street (the only option where I lived at the time). This car was 1970s vintage, so no clock, and I’d bought like a $5 pocketwatch and duct-taped it to the dash. I’d also covered the gross-ass seats with these sheepskin seat covers I’d bought at a head shop. And I had about $1.50 in change in the cup-holder. Someone broke in and stole the watch and the seat covers, left the money 
I suspect he had a craptacular car with no clock too. But he did have change for his parking meter.
And one more, I guess. I remember once about 40 years ago or a little more, someone got into my trusty Chevrolet Chevette while I was watching a movie at a cineplex and seemed to have tried to remove the car’s radio. I say “seemed to” because I did not even notice anything wrong at first. But first I noticed the hatchback had been popped open and was sitting loose, and I was sure it was closed tight before. No damage there. Then I noticed some small scratches around the radio. The best I could figure is maybe the thief got scared away by something, or maybe he finally realized it was just a plain old radio and not a stereo system.
Sound like her definition is even narrower than the FBI’s UCR - Part 1 definitions,
- Criminal Homicide
- Forcible Rape
- Robbery
- Aggravated Assault
- Burglary
- Larceny-theft (except motor vehicle theft)
- Motor Vehicle Theft
- Arson
Part 2 has 20 more offenses including embezzlement, forgery, and juvenile runaways.
I’ve had my car broken into multiple times. The first time they took the $40 I had stashed for emergencies in the ash tray, later times I didn’t leave anything worth stealing.
I had my lawnmower stolen from my back yard.
Most scary was when on a scuba diving trip to Bonaire with my extended family some people broke into the house we rented while we were sleeping. I woke up when someone opened my door and started looking through my stuff. I assumed it was my dad and asked if I could help him find anything. He immediately jumped and ran out, and I instinctively ran out after him until my conscious brain took over and realized that this was a really stupid idea, without backup. So I yelled to wake everyone up.
We then noticed that my 10 year old niece hadn’t gotten up and was still in her room with the door locked, and didn’t respond despite repeated poundings on the door. Since we didn’t know if one of the burglers might have locked themselves in with her we eventually decided to bust the door down. Fortunately she was safe, although scared out of her wits by having been woken up with the door being busted open. I guess she was just a really sound sleeper.
Near as we can tell they took my wallet which contained a few hundred dollars spending money for the trip, and a diving hood of my dad’s. The next day I found my wallet (minus the money) and all of my cards scattered about a hundred yards for the house.
When was that? We always leave our truck unlocked with nothing in it while diving, but haven’t had any issues otherwise. We love Bonaire, but it is a weird place in many ways.
This was probably around 2003 or 2004. As I recall crime was known as a problem at the time. We were told that is was people coming over from Venezuala which was in crisis at the time, but who knows. It’s hopefully improved since then.
Sexual abuse when I was 3 (conviction.)
Sexual abuse when I was 11-17 (Did not report)
At a bare minimum, parental neglect. Between the ages of 16 and 17 I lived almost completely alone while my parents lived in another apartment in another city. I’m not sure how the law views regularly threatening to maim or kill your child, especially while brandishing a weapon or referring to a firearm kept in the house.
Sexual assault (mild), age 17. (Did not report)
About four years into my marriage, we had some contractors over and one of those fuckers stole my wedding ring. I knew exactly where I had put it and it vanished while they were in the house. I turned the entire apartment upside down and never found it. Assholes. It was really special to me. We ended up replacing it with something much pricier which I do really like, but it’s not the same as the modest and meaningful ring I had before.
I was scammed out of a laptop, but the post office caught on and saved me. Not sure if that counts.
I feel the need to divulge the crimes I have committed. When I was seven, some older kids persuaded me to break into a locked school building by smashing the windows. Cops were not impressed. I stole my Uncle’s pen. I physically assaulted a high school colleague without provocation because his friends pressured me to. I hit him harder than I meant to. They thought it was hilarious; he never forgave me. All other injuries sustained to boys were self-defense!
Wow, I’ve been lucky. Left my car unlocked, it got tossed, but no damage. They took a case of beer.
Think I had a close call once. Lived alone in a dicey neighborhood. I was cleaning the apartment, left the door open. Two guys just walked in. They wanted to ‘Look around’. I told them no. I’m a pretty big guy, I think I was lucky though.
Crap that sucks. And it reminds me that we’ve been though it a few times as well. I forgot to add that to my victim CV.
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Our CC numbers somehow got used to buy a few thousand worth of electronics. My wife works at our bank, so she got wind of it somehow from the CC company and stopped it.
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Another time a CC ended up buying stuff, and we knew exactly who had it (unused card, pulled out for a restaurant bill - the only use that year). Waiter was gone a while with it, and we started getting charges and had to cancel. No big hassle since it wasn’t in regular use.
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Fraud alerts and frozen credit bureau accounts stopped another attempt in its tracks.
I count these as a crime against me whether they were successful or not.
I’ve twice had my car rifled through in a parking lot, but no damage and nothing was taken.
I forgot our car was broken into in NM while moving (hotel lot). Lots of things stolen but nothing irreplaceable. Insurance actually covered everything completely.
Heck, if you count failed attempts to make unauthorized charges on my credit cards, I probably get an attempted bad charge every 6 months on average and have for years. Of course that’s not too different from a would-be burglar walking past my car in a parking lot, noting the locked doors and moving on to the next car. How often does that occur? I have no idea, but I bet it’s a surprisingly big number for folks who often park in sketchier areas.
Actual charges that go through and are later reversed, leaving some merchant holding the bag are less commonplace. Thankfully, and by shear dint of the card companies’ diligent anti-fraud measures. That seems to happen to me about every 18-24 months.
Our CC has been compromised several times. If it’s outrageous enough, the CC company catches it and notifies us, but you still have to go through the hassle of getting a new card. One idiot tried to donate $5,000 to a Nigerian church. Twice.