Jeepers,

While I can't recall all the particulars, yes, there have been gun related crimes on the French side as well as on the Dutch side. There was an article in one of the island papers recently that several people had been arrested for gun related crimes and at least one of them was deported immediately to Guadeloupe. At least there's one off the streets....

It's a very small island with open borders, limited police on both sides of the island, and people can and do move easily between the two countries which is but a small part of the problem, and to date I don't know if they've resolved the issues with regard to perpetrators committing a crime on one side of the island and fleeing to the other and the police departments lending mutual aid and assistance to each other. But some of these same things are exactly why so many of us love and keep returning to the island.

The thing is, we still go and enjoy but we are more aware and we try not to let these things ruin our enjoyment of a place we've loved for almost 43 years of annual trips.

This is a generalization, but most of the crimes that we read about are usually not of a nature that visitors would be effected by, but sadly, they do happen on both sides of the island and on the neighboring islands, too. Today, few places are without crime.

And that said, I still go a couple of times a year but with age I've become far wiser than in the days of those wonderful trips of 'back in the day' and I wouldn't dream of wandering, day and night, into some of the places we used to go. I do keep my car doors locked when out and about at night around the island. I make a point of using valet parking when it's available. I don't wear a lot of jewelry intentionally while on the island. And I can honestly say, in 43 years worth of trips, often visiting multiple trips in a year, the worse thing that has ever happened to us was having our rental car vandalized in a beach parking lot.

Our next trip is late November and with all that's been going on, I'm still looking forward to it and I don't think I'd be any more or less at risk in most of the places I'd like to vacation. Things happen everywhere, but they're the exception and not the rule. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" />