Lakeside Crime closing down due to lack of participation

Lakesidecrime.com will be closing down and it not taking new reports due to lack of reporting by crime victims. This message is posted on the website:

In the beginning, many people posted crime reports, for perhaps a year. For the last year, weeks pass without reports of breakins. Yet, we hear from neighbors and friends and on webboards continuously about breakins and other crimes. The problem is - most of those crimes are not being reported to Lakeside Crime.

What has happened, is that several people - three to be exact - have kept their eyes and ears open - and have sent us details whenever they uncovered sufficient facts about crimes in their neighborhood.

If you look in the right hand column, you will see crimes reported by Lakeside Crime friends A, B, and C. For the last six crimes reported: 2 were reported by victims; 1 was taken from a webboard; and 3 others were made by people that have continually tried to support the website.

What that comes down to is that most Lakeside Crime victims do not send us a report.

To those three Lakeside Crime Friends, we express our heartfelt thanks.

We would also like to thank the victims and their friends and neighbors that have sent in reports.

And over the years we have had two volunteers that have tried to keep posters up. My thanks to them.

The website reports will be available for another month or so. No new reports are being accepted.

Thank you for your past support - Mitch

[quote="simpsca"][b]Lakesidecrime.com will be closing down and it not taking new reports due to lack of reporting by crime victims. /quote]

A bit presumptuous, no? If no or fewer crimes were reported, perhaps that is the news. Thanks for your efforts in the past but. what the hell, what better site to shut down for lack of participation.

I don´t know about your neighborhood, but in this part of Ajijic, property crime has definitely subsided from levels we experienced last year at this time. That´s a good thing.

Actually there were about the same amount of crimes reported this year as last - but were reported by a few people who either knew about the crimes (from the victims) or read about them posted by the victims on other chat groups. So it was more a lack of reporting by the victims themselves that became a problem.

If you look at the reports you can see crimes were down in Ajijic this year over 2010 (although the year is not over) and up in some other areas.

It's a shame to lose the website, now the only way I know what is going on is via rumor which is not very reliable.

[quote="hound dog"]

simpsca wrote:[b]Lakesidecrime.com will be closing down and it not taking new reports due to lack of reporting by crime victims. /quote]

A bit presumptuous, no? If no or fewer crimes were reported, perhaps that is the news. Thanks for your efforts in the past but. what the hell, what better site to shut down for lack of participation.

I don´t know about your neighborhood, but in this part of Ajijic, property crime has definitely subsided from levels we experienced last year at this time. That´s a good thing.

I haven't heard of any property crime near our area, Los Arroyos Sur in Rancho del Oro (West Ajijic) over the past few months. By that I'm including Los Arroyos, Arroyo Encantado, Rio Orinoco, Rancho del Oro, Los Sabinos and Arroyo Alto.

Just because you personally didn't hear about something happening, doesn't mean that it didn't happen. I remember reading about a home invasion attempt in Rancho del Oro so I went to the site and checked - July 30th - a home invasion less than 2 months ago by a few days. http://lakesidecrime.com/ranchodeloro/ranchodeloro073011.php and property was destroyed in the break in attempt - so that would be a property crime.

And who knows what else - as they said - not very many people were submitting reports, From what I heard, San Miguel had/has the same problem - crimes are happening but people are reluctant to send in reports - so it doesn't look like a local problem.

I think there are several reasons why people may be reluctant to report the crimes:

- Ignorance of the process;
- Not trusting the local authorities or thinking that nothing will be done anyways;
- Home/property owners trying to retain the value in their investment by keeping a lid on local crime;
- Fear of retribution from the bad guys (see point #2).

To my way of thinking, people have a tendency to be complacent and most simply do not wish to get involved. This applies both NOB and SOB! Then at the same time, they will love to complain that nothing is being done. Reporting a crime in Mexico is somewhat problematic and time consuming and that provides an excuse not to do so. Furthermore, far too many people tend to be worried about repercussions and their safety.

I feel sorry for the founder of Lakeside Crime because he essentially had a good idea but didn't have the support to make it a success! I doubt very seriously that the lack of reports was in any way indicative of a lowering of the crime rate.

But Lakesidecrime.com is not a government agency, and there is no requirement to report to local agencies. I think it's more a matter of many people didn't know they were there (Lakesidecrime.com) - no advertising. A few times when they were having seminars on home protection at LCS the crime reporting went way up until they stopped the seminars.

And I also think crime victims are so traumatized after the robbery, burglary, or whatever - the last thing they think of is report to a website. I had a break in when I lived in San Antonio Tlayacapan a few years ago at 1pm in the afternoon. My friend came home and interrupted them and the ran out. Even though we boarded up the broken window and walls were very high, we were freaked out and until the razor wire went on top of the wall we never both left the house at the same time. And we didn't sleep very well either for quite a long time. Also got a big dog which I still have.