This is for a game. Suppose there are some kids out alone at night, in a bad neighbourhood. What happens? I suppose they could be picked up by a random child molester, but that seems unlikely. And ignore the obvious “someone takes them to the police station” possibility. What else is there?
You’re looking for bad things, bizzare things, or what?
er…around here? They’d probably go for tacos, maybe see a band or two at a local bar if the doorman buys their fake IDs, and perhaps get mugged or get shot waiting for the bus.
The good neighborhoods? About the same. The likelihood of the mugging/shooting goes down a bit, but it’s never zero.
Well, let’s make them rather young kids. Say, 10 or so. Would most criminals leave them alone, or what?
Just tell me this game isn’t for a kid’s birthday party, please.
3:00 - Pin The Tail On The Donkey
3:20 - Musical Chairs
3:40 - Limbo
4:00 - Piñata
4:15 - Spiked Kool-Aid
9:30 - Wake Up In A Pile Of Vomit On The Wrong Side Of The Tracks
Of course not. They’d be dragged off to some foreign country where they would toil in squalid conditions producing crappy goods eventually sold by Mall-Wart.
True life story. When I was around 12 or so and we were poor, and I needed to get from Wisconsin to California where my mother was, all we could afford was a Greyhound bus ticket.
Most of the journey was sorta fun for me. I felt grown up, independent. I wasn’t fond of lay-overs at Greyhound bus depots though. They tend to be kinda creepy & seedy. But for the most part is was an adventure for me.
Until I got to Las Vegas, where I had a lay-over. The bus driver let me off at an out-lying depot, in the middle of the night, in a seedy neighborhood, and the station was closed. I’m standing there, scared out of my wits with my luggage stacked next to the door of the completely dark Greyhound stop. Scared, but trying to look as confident as I can. Typical seedy neighborhood. You’ve got the blinking lights of the liquor stores. The blinking lights of the cheap pay-by-the-hour motels. The blinking lights of the XXX adult book stores. The only people around seemed to be hookers, homeless people hunched in a corner with a bottle in a brown paper bag, the occasional car.
I had at one, maybe two hookers approach me. Not offering anything, just sorta shooting the shit. “Hey, what’s up honey?” I answered firmly as I could that I was just waiting for my bus and that’s it.
Had a middle-aged man show up. He asked me if I was OK or did I need any help or something. Gave him a firm “noI’mwaitingformybusandI’mjustonmywaytoseemymom.” He went away.
Had a Catholic nun show up and ask if I needed any help. Gave her a firm no, as well. But was somewhat relieved she was around.
Never saw a cop.
It kinda seemed like if I had been a homeless runaway, what happened to me may have depended on who got to me first. But assuring everyone I wasn’t part of this “night people” world, people just wandered by, wanted to see what was up with this kid who happens to find himself in their world, then left me alone.
When another bus finally showed up a few hours later, the driver was really pissed off the other driver and left me there. I was supposed to have gone to the main depot downtown Las Vegas, which is open all night, well lit, and much safer, relatively speaking.
So long story short I think most of the time a kid who was out at night alone, isn’t automatically going to get preyed upon.
Around here they wander through the back alleys, get shit faced drunk, yell a lot, fight a lot, occasionally mug or stab someone (including stab to death), break beer bottles, try car door handles to see if they can get in to search through glove compartments, occasionally throw paint of cars and buildings, and one time tried to burn down my neighbour’ shed.
It sounds like you’re asking for the liklihood of criminals harrassing the kids, as opposed to what trouble the kids might get into on their own. I’d say you have a wide open playing field there for your game. Write it however you want. I’d certainly buy that they are completely untouched. I’d also buy that they are kidnapped by pimps and forced to work as child sex slaves, or end up on an airplane to England with a bellyful of heroin.
If they’re anything like the kids in Hostel, they can manage.
Meh. Chances are, nothing bad is going to happen.
Chances also are that if it’s a potentially dangerous situation, a Good Samaritan will present themselves.
The folks who live in the “bad neighborhoods” are pretty much the same as the people who live anywhere else, except for the fact that they usually are less well-off. And often non-white.
I live in what many middle-class people would consider a bad neighborhood. It’s not at all. I’m surrounded by families; the day I moved in (Halloween 2003) I saw the parents taking their kids around to the houses just as they do in the pricey developments. My neighbors are good people, who help me a lot (as I try to do for them).
Adults tend to be pretty protective of children, and generally young kids aren’t really a target for robbing - they usually don’t carry much, if any, money. Your hypothetical youngsters would be in the most danger from other kids, many of whom don’t see their peers or younger children as something precious, to be protected. But I suspect there are as many neighborhood drug dealers in the good neighborhoods as the bad - they’re just less visible to outsiders. You don’t expect the local source to be wearing khakis and a button-down shirt. Ditto child-molesters - probably evenly distributed between good and bad neighborhoods (and pretty darned rare in both).
One problem they might have is if they went into an area claimed by a gang as their ‘territory.’ While I’ve never actually known of this happening (but then I never read local news), I could see some gang kids deciding that your kids were violating their space, and beating the crap out of them. And there’s also the risk of being caught in cross-fire, but whether or not they were supervised by an adult would be irrelevant in that case anyway. And again, it’s pretty rare - I’ve never heard a gun shot in my neighborhood, although I’ve been told there’s some gang activity.
Very few people other than kids themselves target the very young. Probably the biggest increase in risk for your kids would be that of an accident rather than a crime. Kids play in the street a lot around here, and the driving patterns tend to be comparatively erratic - it’s quite common to see double-parked cars with their drivers holding an extensive conversation with someone on the street. Also, I’ve noticed in the poorer neighborhoods that there is less respect for pedestrian rules, such as crossing with the green light and/or at a crosswalk.
The biggest difference I’m aware of between “good” and “bad” neighborhoods is that the poorer neighborhoods tend to have a LOT of people outside in front of the houses, or even in the street (in warm weather, of course). It gets rather loud sometimes. It’s much tighter as a real community than your typical suburban neighborhood - lots of folks who are related to one another living in the same area, and often far more people living in one house than you’d find in Pleasant Valley.
The kids go out and do mischief? Break windows, ring doorbells, scare passers-by?
Not all kids are victim-material.