Whats going on here in Maine (crime)

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It has always been a funny statistic here in Maine, the running statistical joke was you were twice as likely to die on a snowmobile than you were getting murdered. That is on average we have about 10 murders a year, snowmobile fatalities are typically in the high teens.

This year every weekend it seems someone has gotten murdered. There was a couple in a tiny town called Wayne, Maine. One just outside of Bangor, and if my count is accurate we are hitting the 20 mark for the year. Now it has come to my county. A kid was purposely run over last weekend in his own driveway by a another kid with a truck in Winterport.

This is nuts. Waldo County Maine, by statistics anyway, is the safest place to live crime wise. I deduce that because we have the lowest crime rate in the state, and Maine has the lowest crime rate in the nation. Heck I don't even own a gun, nor do I lock my doors, my car or even have a door on my snowmobile shed.

I was just curious what crime is like for other woodworkers on here. Is is something you worry about? Maybe not so much murder, but theft? What precautions do you take? Have you ever had a problem with undesirables (besides your brother in law borrowing your tools) messing with your tooling?


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Travis, that is really a shame, but I'm thinking that this is just a blip in the stats, I'll bet that it is NOT a trend, certainly hope it is not.

The main thing that I do for keeping my stuff safe, it the old adage, "Out of sight, out of mind".

I try very hard NOT to advertise my location, yes, I've been in the magazines, but I make sure they do not give anything specific, besides, getting anything up them stairs would scare away most thieves.

Cheers!
 
We have crime but so far not a lot of burglaries. When burglaries do occur, it's usually some kids stealing for drug money....but there's not a lot of that. The thing here is .....everybody knows everyone is armed. Never had anything stolen in hunting camp either partially for the same reason. We'd go up 3 weeks early, cut firewood, set the tents. Come in 3 weeks later to hunt...tents up firewood still there. Most of our crimes are alcolhol related...somebody gets drunk and does something stupid.....Please don't bring up an Idaho U.S. Senator and the bathrooms in Minnesota.....That didn't happen here!:eek::rolleyes::D
 
This is one subject my town excells in, crime. Detoit is usually number one or two in the national rankings for crime, and I'm talking lot's of crime, not little crime. (Seems St. Louis likes to trade for the top dog spot) It is pretty much standard to lock your car anytime you are not sitting in it. If you go in to pay for your gas you should lock the car. Many, if not most, homes have alarms of some sort.

It was a big change for us when we moved from kentucky to here (even though we are an hour away from Detroit). The news here is depressing so I don't usually watch it anymore.

I suspect that crime in general across the nation is rising. Since we are getting more and more people occupying the same spaces you will come across more that will get things the easy way. As the national economics gets tougher are also seeing more crime. And lastly I don't believe the "don't touch the student" theory in primary schools is helping any.

Opinions expressed in this post are mine, take them as that. I have no scientific data to support my opinion on this subject.
 
That's a real bummer Travis. As others have said, I hope it's just a blip.

We have had a few horrific events here over the past few years. Thankfully they have been an aberration, and not the norm.

I grew up outside of Chicago, so the typical precautions we take are seen as a bit extreme here - like taking the keys out of the car and locking it.:rolleyes::D

Wes
 
It is not too bad here, although as my one neighbor's children get older things are bound to get worse. There have been a few break ins around here, but those have happened to houses that are isolated from view. We are right on a corner and can be seen from several vantage points. Most of the neighbors (excepting the one mentioned above) are friendly and watchful as well.

If someone would attempt a break in while we are here, we will call 911, but it won't be for the cops to come and protect us. ;) If they were to break in while we were gone, well, that is why we have insurance. And anyone thinking they can waltz in here for a strong arm robbery would be walking into more trouble than he or she ever dreamed possible.

Bill
 
I was doing a job in a small town in Minnesota and the locals were always giving me odd looks for locking my car and checking it. Places are different in this respect. Locking up is a force of habit in my part of SoCal. Shop is locked and alarmed with battery and cellular backup straight to the cops.
 
Travis,

I live and work in DC, but crime is actually the least of my worries. At this moment, I'm sitting less than two miles from the Capitol building, and not much further from the white house. I'm a hundred yards from the largest christian church in the hemisphere. The anthrax post office is where our mail comes in.

In other words, I'm dead center in the crosshairs. I've never been robbed or burglarized, but all I had to do was look out my window to see the planes and the smoke that day. When the air force was flying cover over the capitol, they were flying right over here. Oh, and the main train tracks go right by here. If something happened, we'd probably not even see it coming.

I *wish* I lived out in the countryside. Things are way too specific and imaginable here... ;)

Thanks,

Bill
 
Although I live in LA, I'm in an area that has a relatively low crime rate. We really don't have many gang-bangers around this part of town, since the bikers ran them all off. (And the average biker around here is 50, works a real job, has 2.2 kids, and mows his lawn every weekend like everyone else.) The meth/crack heads tend to prey on their own kind. We have some petty stuff, but very few serious crimes. (Can't say that about other parts of LA, for sure.)

Our house is on a cul-de-sac, and we all keep an eye on each others' houses. It's not uncommon for me to get home from work around 6:00, open the garage door to let the shop cool off, then not actually go out to the shop until several hours later. Between the neighbors and the dogs, nobody is likely to walk off with anything from my shop. When we're not here, someone would have to go through three large dogs to get to anything good. If we are here, they'd need to add Messrs. Smith and Wesson to that equation. ;)
 
There are a couple of stats. that I've found interesting. First, the FBI UCR points out that property crime tends to go down when the economy is good and up when it is bad. Obviously as a statistic that is a trend and not hard and fast and would depend on where you are. As Bill L. pointed out, there isn't much he can do sitting that close to the capitol, since it will always be a magnet for hate and discontent.

The other statistic I've found interesting, especially for those married to statistics only, is the Ice Cream Index. There is a direct correlation between ice cream sales and the murder rate. In case you have to think about that one the factor that ties them together is Heat. As it gets hotter folks tend to get a bit edgier and shorter tempered.
 
Well, I live about half a mile, or less, from the center of the Japanese Self Defense Force (Military) head office, if North Korea ever lobbed a nuke at us, I'm sitting on ground zero :eek:

Other wise, violent crime is low here, but property crime is surprisingly high, lock, double lock EVERYTHING......... :rolleyes:
 
As I have said elsewhere, I live in a crowded corner of a crowded island. It is always difficult to seperate the reality of crime from the reporting of crime. There is a fear industry that thrives on making people scared about something on every day of the week and a fear of crime is usually pretty easy to engender.

Having said that, I am always dismayed by how much low level, fairly trivial crime there is around. Nobody in possession of their wits would ever leave anything of value in a motor vehicle while that vehicle is unattended. Thefts from cars parked at petrol (gas) stations while peole are inside paying are common enough to merit locking your car while you go to pay. My van has been broken into 3 times while parked on the street outside my house. The first time they pulled a lock and got away with tools worth about £40 which will hopefully have netted them enough narcotics to enable them to have drowned in a pool of their own bodily fluid. The second time they pulled the same lock but got away with nothing. Hopefully though they got enough from elsewhere to generate the same outcome. The third time they smashed a window which cost 50 times as much to replace as the value of the empty GPS case that they took. I feel like leaving my van unlocked and having a notice to that effect so that they hopefully don't smash any more windows before discovering that it is an empty van. Or leaving a leopard in it overnight.

The reality is that I live in a "nice" neighbourhood and the member of junior police club who eventually attended the third of these events told me that my "nice" area was actually a relatively high crime area because the "people" involved came there because the pickings were likely to be better than nearer home. So we have become a sort of scallywags awayday destination!
 
i`m as backwoods as they come.....the mastiffs are the least of someones worries if they`re up to no good....i have good neighbors at both the shop and house.....any major crime in this area is few and far between.
 
Reminds me, Ian, of losing a worn out Makita cordless, and a Festool jig saw. My own stupid fault for leaving them in the truck overnight. But it did inspire me and I came up with a use for all those empty power tool cases that seem to accumulate. Simply fill with the revolting matter of choice/availability and leave in an unlocked vehicle. Preferably in a parking lot so they won't know where you live :D Oddly enough, the absolute worst thing I've ever smelled is rotting saguaro cactus -who'd have thought? - not going to find those in England though.
 
My home is in a quiet rural area. Recently there was a rash of burglaries - mostly tools from shops/garages detached from the house. Turns out it was a couple of college kids, and they were selling the stuff on eBay. Someone in housekeeping at their school noticed a bit too much stuff in and out and called the police. BUSTED.

I grew up in the Bronx, where crime was all too rampant.

I was once talking to a mother about her 10 year old son, who was disobedient, disrespectful and generally unmanageable. I gave her my opinion that if she did not get his behavior under control soon, he'd end up in jail. "Well that's where his father is" she said.

And like Vaughn said, worry about the dog, worry more about the owner.

Peace.

Ken
 
The crime is all around and sometimes closer than we think.
I worked with a man for a while, a marvelous craftsman and extremely hard worker. He said to me one day " Robert, ( he called me Robert, everyone else called me Shaz, except my Mom... and Dad who called me Bob :eek:) ...Robert, did you take any nails home with you last night in your pouch?" It was at a time I was wearing carpenter's overalls with the sewn on pouch, as did he and his two main men. I was just starting to mimic those men I wanted to be like, ( honest, hard working, smart men building in a way I had never seen before.) I said as I thought, "yes I did."
He asked me if I brought them back. I thought for a moment and realized that with the clean pair of overalls I had on I had not brought back yesterday's nails. It was a small thing to me but I realize it was a lesson he was trying to share with me. He said, "if you don't return them they have been stolen!"
To some it may seen insignificant, but to me it was important. If I take something that is not mine, I need return it.
Crime in Houston is sadly bad. I only interject this to remind myself to "not be part of the problem reguardless of scale".
Shaz
 
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