Crime in Small Town America

No matter where you are or where you are from you most likely know of or actually know someone that has been a victim of a crime. It can be argued that good people under the right circumstances can do terrible things. I would have to agree with that.

On the other hand there are many out there that do harm just to do harm. They steal, loot, and hurt others just because they can. This has been going on for centuries; this is not something that just started.

Back to my original statement, you know or know of someone that has been a victim of a crime. It really doesn’t matter how small your town is crime lurks there. Take for example a town with only seventy people in residence. Two of those seventy were brutally murdered for money. Now one might be surprised to hear this and think that maybe it was someone from out of town, but one would be wrong. The husband and wife victims were murdered in their home for drugs and money. They were drug dealers; everyone in the town was shocked over the murders because the two victims were well known and very nice.

So it seems that no matter where you live, big city or very small towns’ crime is not exclusive. I live in what I consider a small town, not nearly as small as seventy people, but still small town Maryland. I have live in my small town all of my life, forty plus years and I have watched crime slowly increase as I’m sure that many of you have.

I personally know people that have been robbed, shot at and even murdered. Many years ago we had a murder in my small town to this day I’m not sure what it was about. They were apparently enemies and one early morning the one walked up to the other and shot him in the head. What makes a person act on his or her impulse?

In the county that I live in we have a serious drug problem, street drugs and prescription drugs. How do you stop the abuse of prescription drugs? There is no real answer for this, we can try to control the amount of prescriptions that doctors give out but will that help? Miss use of prescription drugs is a lot like guns, if they want them they will get them. One way or another people that want and need the drugs will get them at everyone else’s expense.

Drug problems are the root of break-ins, store robbery, insurance fraud, and murder. The list could go on and on. People that are addicts have on boundaries when it comes to getting their fix. It never ceases to amaze me the levels to which people will stoop to get what they need.

Doctors have raised the question of genetics when it comes to addiction. As I have lived my life I have noticed that addiction tends to “run” in families, however I have no idea if it’s genetic.

We as a nation can’t deny that drugs are a huge problem for the country. Whether it’s the drug cartel’s bringing them in, the dealers, or the users it’s all a tied together.

That leads me to human trafficking. In my mind this and drugs go hand in hand, I have read that many drug dealers also deal in human trafficking. This is an ugly thing that most of us never want to know about let alone experience.

The definition of human trafficking according to Wikipedia is the abduction of humans, male, female, and children for sex, slavery, commercial sex, and the removal or organs. Sounds wonderful don’t it? Human trafficking can and does happen all around us while we are blissfully unaware.

Runaways are often used as drug mules, they are forced to swallow balloons filled with cocaine and other drugs and then they are flown into the United States where they are given a laxative and the drugs are retrieved. If one of the balloons burst while inside the drug mule they die. Many times these drug mules feel it’s there only option, and that no one really cares about them. It’s happening and it’s happening where you live.

Have you seen it in your area, in your small town or big city? I’m sure that you have because it’s unavoidable.

Sometimes opening our eyes is painful, as I have found out. Some would argue, but I believe it’s necessary.

Thanks for Reading,

Shelly Wyatt – Mystery, Suspense Writer

Fight the Darkness…

Statistics support the fact that crime is on the increase in the small towns across America. I'm sure it comes with the increase in the population and the fact that many people across this great country are suffering financially. So let's add to it some depression due to the lack of jobs and drug addiction this combination is sure to push the crime rate upward.