August 30, 2012Dear Sir,There are three kinds of blasphemy that statistics are commonly used for: lies, damn lies, and politics. In beautiful Bermuda right now, we have a bubbling summer stew of all three cooking up over the fire that is crime. Despite news stories and online comments to the contrary, though, no specific facts presented support there being a “crime wave” here at all. Face it, there is no hot button like crime. People everywhere are anxious about it. I heard much about crime as I prepared to move to Bermuda earlier this year, mostly property crimes. It seems that many people I spoke with had been victims of car or home burglaries. Even folks who have not been victimised mentioned “crime” as an issue for Bermuda. After hearing from so many people and reading various online comments, I spent my first weeks here sure I was about to be a crime victim any ol’ day (or *gulp* night). To “arm” myself, I became a zealous reader of the local press (mostly online). At first, that made my fears worse because each news blip about some bit of antisocial behaviour (like some drunk guy shooting a gun in the air at our local beach late one night during the big party that is Cup Match Weekend) was joined by lots of scary anonymous reader comments portending doom. People lamenting how Bermuda had changed (from what I do not know, I am new here). General comments like “all this crime is only going to get worse because the global economy is failing ... ”.Then I read this article {http://www.royalgazette.com/article/20120808/NEWS03/708089996} and I thought about the Mark Twain quote from above. The article is not very well written, omits important facts and it contains no useful analysis, yet it points out some interesting things if you read closely and think about it. For example, per the article, there were just four gun crimes in Bermuda in the second quarter of this year. Of those, only two involved “real” guns while the others seem to have involved people getting mugged with toys. Having lived until recently in Chicago, I read this and thought: (1) The hell if I am going to fork over my wallet if some guy pulls a gun on me since I have a 50/50 chance that he’s pointing a squirt gun, and (2) there were more than four gun crimes in Cook County, Illinois in the time it took me to read this freaking article! Phishaaaawww! Bermuda doesn’t know from gun crime!Now one young man was murdered and another seriously hurt in the two real shootings. I am not poking fun at them at all. Those are very real tragedies that must be addressed and stopped. However, neither incident was random and each victim likely knew their attackers. These were not the kinds of crimes that threaten the general public. They are the same kind of crimes that happen in much greater numbers every night in the States with very (sadly) little media coverage. In Bermuda, they make multi-day headline news because Bermuda is a small town with a big, nosy, empathetic heart. No one is just a statistic here. That’s good. But it doesn’t make for a crime wave. Another interesting fact from the article: in the past three-and-a-half years, just 18 people were murdered in Bermuda (which has an approximate population of 64,000 people plus about 200,000 tourist visitors each year). In contrast, just across the Atlantic in Richmond, Virginia there have been 23 homicides so far this year. Richmond’s population is 205,533. And Chicago, population 2.7 million, has had the highest murder rate in the world this year — it is projected to have 505 murders by the end of bloody 2012. Geesh, talk about crime wave! And as for property crimes? Seems from the article that they are real but, again, not exactly epidemic. There was one theft from a hotel room in the winter and seven in the second quarter. Considering that more than 200,000 people visit each year, eight hotel room thefts is nothing! No specifics were given in the article either, like how many of these were break-ins vs something being reported missing from a guest’s room.No numbers were given for residential burglaries but we are told they are “down” and overall crime is allegedly down by ten percent here in Bermuda. This is another area that the newspaper should have fleshed out. How many break-ins are there and where are they happening? Until the newspaper tells us more, I have anecdotal evidence: I know people who have been victims of theft here. Mostly they have had change taken from their car or something quick and easy stolen from their house. Bermuda is small and everyone knows who has what, where they live and when they are away. Opportunistic property crimes do happen. But I have not met nor heard of a single person who has been a violent crime victim here. Are they out there, Royal Gazette? How many? What happened?Last point from the article. Even if you do not read it, please check out the reader comments that follow it online. The article mentions that there have been nine sexual assaults in the second quarter of 2012, up from four in the winter months. Nowhere does the article explain if weapons were involved, if any of the assaults were done in conjunction with a home invasion, if the nine unfortunate victims knew their attackers or if they were grabbed on the street or in a hotel room. At least one of them involved a rude chef who probably thought he was being funny with a male co-worker. And again, we are talking about 13 poor souls out of a pool of 264,000 people. Not exactly a crime wave and far less than in any comparable-sized US city, I’d bet. Nevertheless, the eager doomsaying commenters paint a picture of scary thugs openly raping women at gunpoint on Bermuda’s streets. Never mind that I have not seen even one news article about a rape since I have been here. I also have not even heard one through-the-grapevine account of a rape occurring here. Not one. Am I missing something, Royal Gazette? I spent a chunk of this month in the US, including a week in the blood-soaked city of Chicago. I had a blast. And I felt safe. And you know what? I was safe. Here in Bermuda? I am still waiting. But slowly realising that I am safer here than in most places. Do you disagree? Then skip the generalities and give us some specifics, please.NEW RESIDENTSmith’sEditor’s Note: The following link gives the full set of crime statistics: http://www.bermudapoliceservice.bm/upload/PDFs/BPS%20Crime%20Statistics%20Q2%202012.pdfThere were 183 residential burglaries in the second quarter of 2012, down from 237 in the previous quarter and 215 in the same quarter in 2011.