co durham boy

There's plenty crime here it's in abundance, everything from white collar fraud on a grand scale to money laundering for Dutch cannabis mobs.

Most of us don't see the street crime because we actually don't live within them communities so in fact we think there isn't any.

It's all here , rape , sexual assault , murder, class a drug smuggling ,international arms deals,human trafficking,mass prostitution and my favorite legal slave labour.
The thing about living back home is that you are effectively part of that community as a whole thus seeing all thats good and bad about that place.

To believe there is very little crime here is very naive to say the least.Comparing Brixton to Dubai is not even relative.

I agree there's not much crime in the Emirates Hills but theres plenty in the back streets of Deira.
Predominately middle class European ex-pats lock themselves away in gated communities then bleat they live in the safest place in the world,most of us are just as safe here as we are back in the U.K.

Blue Cat

I got my wheels nicked and broken into here.

Madam Medusa

what total and utter crap...i don't live in a gated community here, i live right in the centre of things, but i wouldn't think twice about walking home, not locking the gate etc...whereas i live in a very posh part of london and would never, ever walk home alone at night, we had people trying to break into the house and were only saved cos of the shutters...and i was mugged in pimlico...we've had cars broken into etc etc...

MM, xx

kittycat1

Hi Co Durham,

I found your post interesting. I am not naive enough to think Duabi is crime free, but I must admit I was surprised to hear of a stabbing between such young children, and I was under the impression that Dubai had a lower crime rate than the UK. The fact it has made the front page of the news would indicate it is actually a big deal here.

Of course there are crimes here, the sex trade, the arms trade and corruption, however I was surprised to hear of a 'streetcrime' such as this.

In London, I don't know anyone that hasn't been the victim of some crime or another, whether it be a mugging, burglary, pick pocketing, sexual assaults, etc. And these are street savvy people that don't walk around waving their wallets and laptops yet it happens on a regular basis to everyone. I think the difference is you can avoid any trouble here- I'm surprised what you say about Deira as I wasn't aware it was dodgier there.

I am still in london mode, I lock my doors even when I am just taking the rubbish out, I don't leave my purse laying about and I'm very suspicious of people that seem over friendly. I lived on quite a rough estate in London and there were regular shootings on my estate, I could ignore the drug crime ( although disposed needles in the stairwell to my flat was quite disheartening) and muggings but the idea of getting court in cross fire was quite scary- My local was closed due to a shooting, so for me Dubai feels like a safe haven, I guess it depends where you are coming from and where you end up here. So to say your as safe here as you were in the UK for me doesn't ring true.

Perhaps I am as you say a !

Kittycat

typical

Anecdote alert: I've had my camera stolen in a London bar, my wife had her camera stolen in a Dubai hotel.

You can guess which police force were more interested.

co durham boy

I do take your point and i agree that when you come from a rough estate in London then Dubai would feel like a safe haven.

But my main point of my post is that there might be a exceptions to the rule but for the majority of European ex-pats have never been involved in crime never mind violent crime.
i have also seen my fair share of crime and lived on sink estates but i honestly think it's impossible to compare the two.The whole society here is socially engineered,so basically if your at the top of the ladder you will get to see less crime.

Your point about the stabbing is relevant because you didn't hear about, for instance last year in 2009 there were official reports of around 300 serious offences in our labour camps
These included alleged attempted murder and rape and drug offences, the crimes of a 'sink estate' maybe?

in Deira there's alleged mass sub-continent prostitution rings and muggings on a regular basis and there's a lot of crime committed in and around the dhow wharfage for obvious reasons.

All depending what level you are socially is really relevant to what crime you will be exposed to.

kittycat1

Durham boy,

True good arguement, however to get featured in the UK press you have to have suffered an absolutely horrific ordeal, they don't report that every week a child dies from abuse or neglect in the UK, or how many women are beaten by their husbands, god knows how many crimes go unreported but it all still goes on. And its true that most of these crimes in the Uk are now rife in minority groups, you go on to any inner city council estate and the majority are uneducated, out of work and desperate, where there is poverty there is crime- it doesn't matter whether you are in the Uk or Timbuktu.

My point is crime happens everywhere but for me, here seems safer than at home, maybe there is a certain ammount of naivity involved and its easy for me to avoid violence here comapred the the UK. We don't hear about the crimes you described because no one wants to address the issue that not everyone has a priviliged life, we all carry on living in a bubble, of course one mans life is equal to any others whether your a company director or work on a building site and you're right that there is a class system here that luckily for me I am on the right side of here, however is it possible to change that system- sadly not.

My original point was that I was under the impression that Dubai didn't have this sort of crime-obviously I was wrong! However, personally I still feel far safer here than in London .

Kittycat

co durham boy

spart

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/pol...0308-pqs6.html

Interesting article about crime in Dubai

Dubai has long been a place to make a killing, all too often literally. As a journalist working there in the mid-1990s, I remember my office buzzing with news that a gangster by the name of Sunil Sawant had been gunned down in broad daylight in a busy shopping precinct.

"The answer may be that Brand Dubai itself is under intense scrutiny"

"Having also positioned itself as a tourism and major events destination, the city sets a lot of store by visitors feeling secure."

Euc-

of course there will be crime, police state or not (got pulled over by an officer yesterday in RAK, was overtaking him when there was a straight line in the middle, the moron was going 60 on a one way lane where 100 is allowed, got off with a warning ), any city with millions of people living in it will have crime of every caliber.

Although I've never felt unsafe, knock on wood, a friend of mine was offroading in the desert just beside RAK airport together with a friend of his, when they got harassed by a quad-bike gang. Around 20 locals on quadbikes all of the sudden surrounded him and ordered him away from "their spot", he was a bit intimidated and they forced him to drive to an area where he got stuck in the sand, then they proceeded to throw big rocks which screwed up his car pretty well. When the police came they drove off deeper into the desert..

Hello.Kitty

well, it's not just the "not white middle class" areas that may be affected. JBR, for example is taking a right beating - there's graffiti appearing, used needles have been found in public (or rather pseudo-public) areas and that's not even mentioning the murders...

Boomhauer

Dawood Ibrahim, India's most notorious Mafia don who is wanted there used to call Dubai home. I think he is in Pakistan now.

Spugsy

a girl who works with mrs spugsy got 'accidentally hit' last week on the way back from RAK as well.

Bahtatboy

In your wife or the camera?

typical