Just curious to know what experience others have had with violent crime.

Hmmm. Chose no as it wasn't "violent" crime, which *was* the criteria I guess! We were out camping at the lake with my brother and his family one night (several years ago) and a psycho ex neighbor set a small fire in our back porch...enough to ruin it (the back porch was rebuilt) and for the fire dept. to have to show up. She literally WAS off balance..on many different meds, etc...but I didn't think she was that nutso til that night!! No violent crimes though.... M.

I've not - never been robbed, mugged or otherwise attacked.

I don't know if the crime was violent or not. In the past, my house was raided with buglers. They took everything in my house, and wiped it cleaned. It happened three times. I lost my NES, TV, VCR, Pots, Pans, Coffee Maker, Lamps, almost as if someone moved out of the house.

Back then my family was poor. Yes, NES, I was a kid didn't know any better so my parents bought it to shut me up. But, we were definitely poor, and it's really disheartening that these thieves have no regards for other people's well being.

I had an apartment back in '80 and a man broke in , held a gun to my chest , terrorized and threatened to rape me. Another incident when I was thumbing a ride back to Detroit from Akron a year before that. A lot of things happened to me and I don't want to think about them or write about them. Suffice it to say, I voted yes.

nopes

Not me personally. Closest I have ever come is knowing someone murdered during a car-jacking/robbery.

Nope....so far so good.

That would count - I guess I should have been more specific, but I'd consider property crimes like burglary to be in the same category.

I'm just curious about how many people have been victims of specific types of crime - versus the public perceptions of how susceptible they are to it. Per that shooting thread in o/t.

Sorry I had to chuckle when I read buglers. Conjured up an image of that crazy guy from Arsenic and Old Lace who thinks he is President Roosevelt

Nothing for me so far, touch wood.

20/20 did a program recently about just that: our present culture of fear-mongering and the perception of danger even though statistically a person presently living in the US is like the safest human being in history, both from violence and from disease and illness, etc. and life expectancy is longer than ever.

Back in Britain I had a few girlfriends who insisted on taking cabs home and would feel extremely uncomfortable walking home after a night out. Not that I minded of course - but living where I did (certainly not one of the better towns) there was a lot of alcohol-related violence. On balance, I would be infinitely more likely to be assaulted on my way home by myself than they ever would - but the perception still remains.

In fact - on one occasion I remember when I was walking home from the pub a couple of years ago, a woman walking ahead of me 100 yards or so up the street, kept looking nervously behind her and eventually started running to keep ahead of me. It was actually kind of funny (to me), but clearly she had a very real fear.

I love that movie!

No violence for me, thank God.

A close one - once.

I was on the phone with my boss - 8 PM and was holding the phone instead of using the handsfree (yes I was driving too at the time and it was slow moving due to traffic jam - very stupid of me). It was in downtown Jakarta - 2 mins out of parking lot. 3 young men saw me holding that phone and they ran to my car - banging their fist on the car window and windshield. My car was locked and windows was closed so they could not harm me or took anything from me but it was scarry enough.

I passed that street everyday for 1 year - sometimes around midnight and nothing bad ever happened. Just my luck that day I guess.

You almost got robbed because you were seen with a *cell phone*, of all things?

Man, some places are really effed up.

It was $700 cell phone & I am a woman. Easy target.

I was a victim of a violent crime in a third country - Italy. Someone on a motorcycle came on the pavement and grabbed me and dragged me for about 20 yards trying to get my bag (which had a grand total of 30 euro in it and my passport) which was hanging across my shoulder. Strangely, once they got it off me I bounced back up and ran after them shouting even though I would later require hospital treatment (complete bruising up one side of my body but no broken bones).

It's actually a story that's kind of funny in the retelling, though was not particularly funny at the time.

looks like the folks on vj have been fairly lucky as a whole...

i would be curious to see some more votes from the women... i know many women who have been raped or almost were...



another note from that site says they are not including boys/girls 12 or under... so its actually more prevalent than these stats show

Yeah, probably the most common one is rape. In Brazil I was "mugged" by 2 little kids. My roommate and I were walking and not paying enough attention and these two little boys ran up to us and tried to steal her necklace. They removed it and then ran away. One was holding me, but rather unsuccessfully, being about half my size. So um, we were victims of an attempt at violent crime? Kind of? Not in the US

Not sure if this counts or not... I voted 'no'... but last year, I came home from a cruise and found that some jerk who had carjacked a car took that car and ran it straight into my house. It damaged the garage door and hit the corner of the house. I found out the hard way how well my house is constructed.