Delinquency vs. Organized Crime
It is cute, really, the way they keep talking down here in the Dominican Republic about "delinquency" as if there are roving gangs of adolescents running their skateboards through crowds of pedestrians, stealing hubcaps, spray painting graffiti on walls. I am not sure why they keep using the word to refer to the crimes that are taking place all over the beach areas and in the affluent areas of the Capital. Seems to me that when you have armed men breaking into a house and going for computers, passports, jewelry and credit cards, you have crime. And to sell foreign passports, you need a real connection. So this would be crime. Since the US changed its deportation policies back in '94, both the DR and Haiti have had an influx of returned deportees who have completed their advanced crime training in the prison systems of the US. This is a crime wave. Fueled with a crack addiction.
This is not to say that you should not come to vacation here - or even think about investing here. Just be aware that there are areas that are best avoided.
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Actually aside from the fact that delincuency does exist as such here and in significant numbers, there is another interesting reason for the prevalance of youth offenders here: under DR law minors cannot be prosecuted, so gangs recruit small kids, usually under duress, to do a lot of their dirty work. that accounts for how the burglar was able to get into my apt when I was robbed this winter -- it was a child who could slip between the concrete barriers that would otherwise keep any adult from ever getting access to my balcony.
when I learned all this, i thought to myself, it was a good thing I wasnt armed and had surprised the thief because I just might have killed or injured him - and what good does it do to revenge yourself on a child who may just be entrapped by the wiles of older gang members?
i am just now learning that this is one of those words.. those false friends .. there is a huge gap in understanding...
delinquency
along with compromise..
in english we mean .. well compromise
in spanish it means .. just theopposite.. that i am already engaged..
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