[speaker001:] okay well like I was saying Burlington's crime it doesn't involve children and what you see on the TV's from you know in Washington and New York so what I believe the people want the subject is is big city crime which is something that I don't have any first hand experiences about but I have you know concerns and I have a few ideas of um
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] how to combat it I mean I don't I don't think uh ideally you know you need money to do everything so that's one thing that
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] that's one thing that that's that's crime that you can't fight it if you need that money so
[speaker002:] right yeah well when uh we lived in San Antonio I grew up around San Antonio and it's always been a very large uh city and increasingly growing it's has kind of the split population um there's a lot of retired military uh individuals that live there and then there's a very large Hispanic population there and the one thing that we noticed that over the years has gotten worse and worse is Hispanic uh gang crime in the city and that is uh been the worse thing that we've seen happening uh
[speaker001:] oh does it spread out of the neighborhoods into the more the uh retired people's community or does it stay in the bad neighborhood
[speaker002:] um the majority of the actual gang crimes like the the drive by shootings and stuff stays in the neighborhoods but the crime spreads out into the more affluent divisions through robberies rape and uh car crime there's a very large uh or very high percentage of car theft and San Antonio San Antonio's not far from the border to Mexico so a a lot of the uh cars go to uh you know hack shops and they take them apart and a lot of them go over the border especially like Mercedes a lot of those those in the the Z uh the Z cars the Datsun cars end up over the border and uh
[speaker001:] so that's a big concern if you live there is to really lock your car up
[speaker002:] very much so very much so in fact um for a while there uh they had downtown if you were to come come to a stop light they had a a rash of where people were uh when people were stopped at stop signs that people would get in their car and hold a knife and hold them up so now ever since then when you drive into the city most people keep their doors locked while they're in the car until they get down there and once you've reached the the river walk area which is the tourist area it's usually pretty safe during the during the day if you're just kind of cautious and don't go down the back streets or alleys and um you know or or alone if you stay with the groups and along the area where they have the the river patrol cops it's very nice but at at evening um again you they have the high tourist area the river walk area which is nice but you don't want to get off the beaten track um there's a lot of parking garages there because parking is very tight and so you don't want to get caught in the parking garage um alone
[speaker001:] oh my it sounds like um San Juan Puerto Rico we were there just well for a lay over and um well it wasn't a lay over we were we had
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] we were we had we were staying at the other end of the island and we drove into San Juan to catch our plane it was at night and this boy really wanted to go on the beach and they look at you crazy you don't go on the beach well it's a big tourist town
[speaker002:] um-hum um-hum
[speaker001:] you know don't they don't people go for a walk on the beach at night and they said no it's very safe in the daytime but at night they even have the policemen come around at dusk
[speaker002:] um-hum um-hum
[speaker001:] and sound their sirens pretty much telling people be wary you know and get off the beach
[speaker002:] it's just so sad you know it is just really so sad you know it is just really so sad because you can't enjoy anything any more um in San Antonio I don't know what the answer is uh education I think is a lot of it um so many of the kids are are drop outs um uh there's a lot of drugs that go on and that they just have hopeless lives they they lead themselves down hopeless tunnels I think education helps a little bit there um they again I don't know really what steps there are that they
[speaker001:] well what they what they say they try to do is to get the kids um early and young and what we have here in Burlington which
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] it doesn't cost a lot of money but they have a kids council that they have all these after school activities for kids they set up
[speaker002:] uh-huh uh-huh
[speaker001:] kids with elderly people in the winter time they shovel their snow they have a big brother big sister program they have bottle drives they have cleanup outings
[speaker002:] uh
[speaker001:] and they have also organized fun activities like gyms going to the beach and playing volleyball at the beach in the summer and they have gyms open and it seems that the younger you can get them and get them involved with programs
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] after school you might keep them but you again you need that one on one
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] like a big brother trying to keep the younger kid you know tell him hey stay in school it'll get better you know so that your mom doesn't have a job and
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] she doesn't work you don't know you can be better than that You don't have to live on the you know for a street life
[speaker002:] uh-huh that's good that sounds like they've got a lot going on there
[speaker001:] but yeah but it's so cheap they don't have a problem here I mean um they can deal with that scale
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] they might have five hundred troubled youths when you have five thousand troubled youths plus when you're getting into the well the kids now it's twelve years old and they're
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] selling drugs and they've got a fifteen year old that's their boss that is carrying a gun
[speaker002:] uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh
[speaker001:] it's just it's the morals of the people which I mean I guess we everybody's responsible for the society but if I had a child that that did things so bad it's not they don't care about anybody these people they're stealing from they're just the big bad rich guy
[speaker002:] uh-huh uh-huh
[speaker001:] and we don't have it so we deserve it and we should take it
[speaker002:] uh-huh yeah I don't know how you combat that I I don't know where you start or with a lot of these kids um so many of them all they see is just the gangs and unless you can take them out of the environment enough to where they don't have the peer pressure from the gangs as soon as they come home from school
[speaker001:] yeah well I think a lot of it is the parents are totally irresponsible too we're talking these kids are fourteen years old The parents might be thirty years old
[speaker002:] oh yeah uh-huh
[speaker001:] and I'm thirty years old and I'm kind of irresponsible but I have the morals that keep me from you know if I was going to go out and drink or do something I wouldn't do it in front of my child these people you know they bring their their Johns home and they bring their drugs home and the kids are just sitting there in the same room
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] it's just that they have absolutely no no morals and it's really sad
[speaker002:] uh-huh and I don't know how you combat that I really I don't know what the answer is to that problem you know
[speaker001:] but I like your idea of education I mean if the parents aren't supplying it they've got to get it from someone else from the schools
[speaker002:] uh-huh uh-huh yeah and what do those kids do they get it at school and come home what do they do then I I feel I feel for them I don't know how to make it better for them or you know unless because it they can't remove themselves they can't just leave and say okay well it's not acceptable I'm leaving the big city mom and I'm I'm going off you know when they're ten they have to live in it and
[speaker001:] yeah it's really sad like if they did have a big brother big sister program those those people trying to help the kids the parents might have hostilities towards them
[speaker002:] uh-huh right I think so and uh
[speaker001:] you know like you're judging us and I'm not good enough to raise my child which basically is true
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] it it it's I'm glad I don't live in a big city
[speaker002:] uh-huh yeah
[speaker001:] just because I mean not just because I wouldn't feel safe it's just because that I would be reminded every day of something that I don't see and I might see it on a you know a Sixty Minute special
[speaker002:] yeah uh-huh no in San Antonio it was like every day it was just a matter of who was shot that night
[speaker001:] I know it but San Antonio is considered a nice clean city believe it or not I mean they have all kinds of nice write ups about it
[speaker002:] uh-huh oh yeah but
[speaker001:] but any big city has a bad section
[speaker002:] but there's a lot of them it's very prevalent a lot of the crime is very prevalent
[speaker001:] yes they're very bold it seems
[speaker002:] uh-huh very much When we moved here to Monterrey it was a big change because it's such a small community we're just above Carmel and um there's hardly most everybody seems pretty well employed around here and um those that aren't there's Celinas which is about a fifteen minute drive which is mostly migrant workers and there's a lot of crime there um migrant Hispanic farm workers people that are down and out and uh they all seem to congregate in Celinas not so much here in Monterrey so it's it's pretty quiet you know we walk the streets at night and uh people run in the park and you know you're just have your normal smarts about you then you really don't have to worry or
[speaker001:] really even uh even in the worst crime areas in Burlington I I can walk the streets I wouldn't I if I did it every night
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] I think there would be trouble in our house so you wouldn't get confronted or anything
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] but I don't think you would uh someone might grab you mess around with you but they're not going to grab you steal your your money and slit your throat which in a lot of big cities
[speaker002:] uh-huh yeah
[speaker001:] I mean that's what you your going to have to expect that to happen people are just totally unfeeling like uh
[speaker002:] uh-huh oh uh-huh uh I didn't know that about Burlington I'll have to keep that in mind