Thursday, February 07, 2013

Puerto Ricans Wrestle with High Crime



On the island of Puerto Rico, crime is on a high rise and the natives are desperate for help and change.Residents of Puerto Rico are contemplating the move to the US for security and broader opportunities. With the population declining, poverty increasing and the economy sinking crime rates are increasing. Puerto Rico's per capita murder rate is about six times greater of the US. According to their police superintendent Hector, 1,136 murders occurred in 2011 an all-time record.


Crime has been spurred around many factors such as poverty, unemployment, dislocation and inequality in most countries like Puerto Rico.Many people don’t have the opportunity or financial resource in Puerto Rico to live like the average youth in America. They seek violent alternative ways to do things in life like theft, gang banging and drug dealing. The older citizens seem to turn to suicide when things get to hard to bare for them. The division of the rich and poor around Puerto Rico led to many street wars and violence because the people feel alienated and lack luxury items. I believe that some rural areas of the US still suffer political, socially and cultural due to high crime rates. The superiors of this Puerto Rico stated claims that solving the drug and crime problems in Puerto Rico will help the mainland of US and the Department of Homeland Security will soon make effort to curb drug violence. We, the US citizens demand the supply of drugs that’s being grown in Puerto Rico and Mexico so primarily we have to do better to tackle our own drug problems. We as Americans fear for crime and the lack of security in our own homes. I think no place today is safe but if we unite as one then the world can become a better place. Reforming their country with full employment policies, strong family values and an improved educational system should reduce criminal activity and make Puerto Rico a peaceful country. 



Courtney Lyons
 February 07, 2013 6:36pm

1 comment:

José M. López Sierra said...

Should criminals be in charge of correcting the wrong they inflicted?

Puerto Ricans vote in elections every 4 years at an 80% level of participation. Puerto Rico has been a colony of the United States (US) government for the past 116 years. If the US government has the final say in what happens in Puerto Rico, what is the purpose of these elections? The purpose is to fool the world that Puerto Rico is a democracy.

The United Nations (UN) declared colonialism a crime against humanity in 1960. The UN has asked the US government 33 times to decolonize Puerto Rico immediately. The US government has refused. It says that Puerto Rico’s political relationship with the United States is none of the UN’s business. The US says that it is a domestic affair.

To appear that the US government wants to decolonize Puerto Rico, it promotes the use of plebiscites to determine what Puerto Ricans want. Doesn’t that sounds innocent and democratic? So what’s the problem?

To begin with, the international community already rendered its verdict and determined that colonialism is illegal. So to have a political status option in a plebiscite that favors maintaining Puerto Rico a colony of the United States is not permitted. To have a political status option of Puerto Rico becoming a state of the United States is also not permitted under international law. The problem goes back to the beginning of this article. In order to have free elections, the country must be free. So before these elections and plebiscite could be valid, Puerto Rico would have to first be an independent nation.

What people must realize is that Puerto Rico is a colony of the US because the US government wants it that way. That is why it has used terrorism to keep it that way. That is why it refuses to release the Puerto Rican political prisoner of 33 years Oscar López Rivera. That is also why it is ridiculous to believe that decolonization is a US internal matter in which the UN has no jurisdiction over. If we allow the US government to decolonize Puerto Rico, she will remain a colony of the United States forever!

José M López Sierra
www.TodosUnidosDescolonizarPR.blogspot.com