is it just me or is crime going WAAAAAY up on the cape?

thefts and home intrusions?

what's driving this up ... drugs?

is any of this spilling onto the islands?

Seems like as times get tighter stuff like this will happen. It isn't just the Cape either. Quite a bit of SE Mass is having the same problems.

is it just me or is crime going WAAAAAY up on the cape?

thefts and home intrusions?

what's driving this up ... drugs?

is any of this spilling onto the islands?

It started on the cape when people started buying summer homes as year round residences. The price of real estate was pretty cheap, so low income families started flocking to the cape and getting out of the cities. Then they realized that it was pretty good living with the generous social programs down there and invited all their friends and families to move down from the city. The cape has become much more of a year round area recently, and as you build more and increase the population, crime increases as well. Having loads of illegal aliens living down there taking up jobs doesn't help either.

OK.. I will prepare to get bashed.. migration, Section 8 housing.. a sagging RE market, has turned many landlords to go this way.. a court officer I know, transferred here from Brockton 15 years ago.. he told me he is now seeing more and more of his regulars from Brockton show up here.. Think about it though.. if you went for housing, and they sais, "We have an apartment in a triple decker in Lowell, Springfield, Brockton, etc... or a condo down on the cape"... What would you pick?

Drugs.. yes.. they are everywhere.. our PD's are playing catch-up, and are almost there... muct suck for them, for the most part they were traffic cops.. before all this.. and it has not been overnight.. last 10-15 years.. yes, there were drugs here before, but not at the scale we have now.. and we did have our "Save the Bails" t-shirts in the eighties.

I read the court reports, and the obits every AM as part of my job.. (helps me now when I do the ordering, believe it or not)..
I read somewhere in a study about the cape population last winter that only 15% of the population has lived in Barnstable county for over 20 years... I found that figure very telling.. I have to agree, there was a time you could stand in the local super market in the off sesaon and know EVERY one in there.. I go in ther now in January, and might see 3 or 4 people I have known longer than 4 or 5 years.

So.. my short answer, is.. migration of those prone to crime, Drugs, and a general shift in the population.. we have more folks on the high end coming here as well.. and those on the low end (forgive me for the generalized terms) now it.. All them high dollar trophy homes..make some folks wonder what is to be had inside... but they also see a lot of security.. so the avg. home becomes the target.

I agree with Mac as well, it ain't just the cape.. SE Mass for that matter.. I think it's everywhere now.

But.. I have changed... I was one of the keys in the car, don't lock the house, kinda guys .. till the early nineties.. that is when I started to feel it changing, and now everything is locked 24/7... so it is Not something NEW either.

Went to serve a warrant last week on a female that has more male hormones than some of the guys I used to play sports with. She is a nasty nasty person. I AM NOT TALJKING OUT OF CHURCH ON THIS ONE EITHER. She has dealt more drugs and beat up more upsuspecting people than you can shake a stick at. She had a kid once and D.S.S. was so afraid of her that when the child popped out the nurse turned and walked out of the room with the newborn and handed the child over to them and it was brought to another hospital and given to a couple for adoption. Guess where her mother said she was living when we went to look for her? In MASHPEE! I have to drive an hour and burn $20.00 of gas for a round trip and this dreg of society gets moved from Whitman to Maspee on us. The female called us after her her mother called her to tell this nasty person we were looking for her. What she said on the phone should have been copied off the dictaphone and run on youtube. Thier were so many MF's said by her to us it probably set a record. Said we would never find her down the cape. This person never even drove over the bridge before welfare shipped her down there. I doubt she ever heard of Cape Cod until her m other threw her out. Mashpee. Geez.

I agree, its not just the Cape, it all of SE Mass., even beyond. Second tier East Coast cities like Boston, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, D.C. have seen crime skyrocket, were talking crime trends that have not been seen since the Reagan era. Philadelphia is averaging a homicide daily (that does not include people wounded or people with bad aim, missing...) and on one day earlier this summer they found 11 people dead in one day. Life has become a lot less promising for those caught in those neighborhoods, and unfortunately drugs seem to be the only employers around. The other problem is labor supply will always exceed the number of street corners so competition needs to be minimized. Drugs are in the suburbs as well, its just a smaller labor pool, less deadly competition. The most qualified street corner drug dealer's resume will always read killer, and if you are willing to kill for the love of money, you will gladly perform other duties (armed robbery, theft, B&E, assault) as needed. Its unfortunate that when the crime is in the city, no one much pays anything more than an interested 10 minutes tuned into the evening news, we are all so removed from those urban concrete and steel jungles, worlds away. However, when the tinted black lexus' with rims the size of a large pizzas start rolling in front of are white picket fences by Ava's wagon, only then do we begin to exhibit any concern.

and crack and soon METH coming to a neighborhood near you soon.

The crime rate encompasses mostly the above. And how its treated in the courts. While possession/sale/or being in the presence of are mostly felonies except for the last one, heroin is being treated like a non-issue by the courts. I think the court thinks that H use is a family problem (while it is) not a criminal matter. But the only effective deterent to its use is drying out in jail.

You can blame this on a lot of things and it is not just the cape either as someone previously said. To live on Cape Cod takes a serious amount of fortitude. Once anything comes over the bridge, it cost more. To live comfortably you have to either own your own business and be good at what you do, be in a profession like a physician or lawyer and be lucky enough to get linked to an already established group and/or hospital or be employed in some kind of federal/state/municipal job that though might not pay as much as the private sector has grerat benefits and security and most importantly have purchased your home sometime in the late 70's to early 80's.

The middle class here is hanging on by a thread. Being a resort community there is a much more consolidated showing of the upper class have's versus the have nots. Just take a ride by the water these days. You'll notice the small cottages that were strictly built for habitation in the summer are the odd men out as original owners or the surviving kin sell out for hefty returns whereupon the only able buyers take the original place down and build a trophy "summer" place. Monomoscoy Island in Mashpee is a perfect example of this, three trophy homes and one small vintage cottage then four more trophy homes. The original cottage becomes an eyesore to the new more affluent neighbors. Whereupon the capes loses more charm as each goes under the demo ball.

Now, being a resort community the service industry needs workers, people who will work for next to minimum wage and will live in squalor. Town owned housing authority husing and unscrupulous absentee landlords who charge the state for the rentals in run down housing. Typical of this is Hyannis area near Bearses Way. It's a ghetto now. Gangbangers/ drugs hookers and pimpin'. 16 year olds wearing baggy jeans with thier shorts hanging out and hoodies terrorizing the neighborhood and local merchants and all packing heat. Quaint old Hyannis ain't what Patti Page sang about so long ago these days. It's a dirty and dangerous place.

With the influx of displaced families, single mothers with no or little education, a flock of kids and a job at Burger King only breeds trouble.
You can't live here on 50,000.00 a year never mind 12,000.00 so with that comes the situation we have now.

We still have nice places here where you can go sit by a pond and hear no cars but we have the same problems that over the bridges do but except for say Boston, it costs more to live here and if your married both have to work and who's left to mind the kids? 40b housing and lotteries for the same leave ample opportunity for the more undeserving to get in where hard working folks fail. Crime is growing, the summer always sees a surge in it here.

Fall, thank God and the offseason is coming where it slows down a little, not much but a little.

You guys do understand that the portion of Massachusetts that is "over the bridge" was once connected to the rest of the state before they dug the canal??? The only reason things cost more down there is because the businesses that sell them mark everything up so they can turn the bucks on the tourists! It has nothing to do with it having to be brought "over the bridge"! Its not like it has to be loaded onto a ferry and transferred to an island!

The crimes mentioned here are not just exclusive to "over the bridge"......here on the south shore you pick up the newspaper any day and you can read about the break-ins taking place in all the towns! Rockland, Abington, Whitman, Hingham, Cohassett, Scituate, Weymouth.......its drugs people.......plain and simple! It is running rampant!!! Heroin, "X", Oxy, Cocaine, Meth......call it what you want, drug use is way, way up past what it was 5 or even 10 years ago!!! Its insane!!! It is not gonna get any better either! I wish I could find a stat about how the application for handgun purchase and use has gone up in the past 5 years......I bet it has gone through the roof because people are going to have to use them more to protect their homes and families from these scumbag/parasites that are everywhere!!! See all these convenience store/jewelry store/gas station thefts caught on video recently where the clerks are pulling a gun and shooting at the scumbags?!?!?!? This is everywhere folks......don't act like one community is any different than another!!! I may wind up with a gun one day......that is scary!!:rocketem:

Its a mileage fee Karl...nothing more, nothing less! Nothing to do with a bridge! The farther away from the distributor you are this type of fee increases as you say. Standard business practice! I suggest you move closer to the distributor. :bl2:

zone pricing, karl.

you get charged more because the wholesalers know the out-of-town folks from NY/NJ will fork it over.

zone pricing, karl.

you get charged more because the wholesalers know the out-of-town folks from NY/NJ will fork it over.

Bingo. It has nothing to do with mileage. When I lived in NY, gas was always at least 20 cents a gallon cheaper upstate, 100 miles from the distribution center, than it was on Long Island 30 miles away.

Right now gas is 10 cents a gallon cheaper in Buzzards Bay than it is on the other side of the Bourne Bridge. But if the distributors want to keep on thinking that the mainland part of Bourne is in Plymouth County, who am I to correct them ;)

Don't do anything drastic yet Karl.....there are sucky neighbors everywhere!;)

Karl F has hit the nail right on the head :smash: I keep writing Ted kennedy and asking if the Air Force can please start cleaning up the Rt 28 area from west Harwich right through Hyannis with some 500 lb bombs but they keep telling me they don't have the money. What a #*$%^ hole Dennis port and South Yarmouth have turned in to. The court report should be re named the comedy report. Because all I do is laugh when I read it. :bl2:

and crack and soon METH coming to a neighborhood near you soon.

. But the only effective deterent to its use is drying out in jail.

i totally disagree... the DEA and the prohibition of all drugs is what is driving this drug business ....not the people doing the drugs but the profitability of either making them or distributing them for profit.

once you take that profit margin away ..there is no need to break into a persons home to find drug money ...because if they are free...you wont need any money to buy them....and because they are free..there will be no profitability to import them either....

it's all about the --->$$$$$$$$$$$$MONEY$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

i totally disagree... the DEA and the prohibition of all drugs is what is driving this drug business ....not the people doing the drugs but the profitability of either making them or distributing them for profit.

once you take that profit margin away ..there is no need to break into a persons home to find drug money ...because if they are free...you wont need any money to buy them....and because they are free..there will be no profitability to import them either....

it's all about the --->$$$$$$$$$$$$MONEY$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

So, are you saying that they should legalize these drugs and then make them free or affordable? Wouldn't that just get more people hooked on them and increase unemployment and put more people on government programs? Somehow, I feel that I will end up spending more of my money to support the druggies, and that doesn't sit well with me. I have a novel approach to this problem. They could enforce the drug laws by ordering addicts into treatment programs like at Gosnold, or they can spend some real hard time at a pound your rear end prison. Then they can start enforcing immigration laws, and get rid of the illegals who pay little or nothing into social security. Finally, they can force welfare recipients who are able to work to find a job. If a welfare recipient gets a job, even if it is part-time, the government could supplement their income. If someone who is able to work decides that they don't want to, you take away their benefits. If they don't like it, they can move to Canada.

i totally disagree... the DEA and the prohibition of all drugs is what is driving this drug business ....not the people doing the drugs but the profitability of either making them or distributing them for profit.

once you take that profit margin away ..there is no need to break into a persons home to find drug money ...because if they are free...you wont need any money to buy them....and because they are free..there will be no profitability to import them either....

it's all about the --->$$$$$$$$$$$$MONEY$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$


:cheers: :claps: If they cant keep them out of federal prisons , how are they going to stop it in the general population????

But.. what the wholesalers don't have to hear, (and they know it) is the mentality we get dealt at point of sale:





Most folks that gripe, think it is the local business doing the gouging.. (OK, I'll give you this.. prolly some do, but not as many as you think).. the gouging starts at some fat cats office.. on the "other" ;) side of the bridge.. and the $$ finds it's way back there too.

What most people do not realize, is that those of us who have chosen to stay here, could have done much better dollars and cents wise, and pay a heavy price to live here... and seeing how the cape has changed, many of us feel it is no longer worth it.. an exodus of natives and washashores alike, is growing.... I would be among their numbers, but I cannot convince my wife.. just yet... the new neighbor could change that soon though.

If I could, it would be Maine.

Me too Flap! They got the same problems up there though.....the grass is not much greener, just a different lawn!

Me too Flap! They got the same problems up there though.....the grass is not much greener, just a different lawn!

They got bass in mid summer, no seals then (guess they all summer on Cape Cod) and cheap Lohbstas'.

I was sitting in Kennebunkport last September enjoying a snack from the Clam Bar and watching 40 or so Stripers feeding on mussels on pilings under the over hang we were sitting on. Some were better than 3 feet long. Later on in Cape Ned#^&#^&#^&#^& there were 20 guys at mid day on on every cast and bass popping all over. Water was cool and clean, no mung up there in summer they say. Smells nicer too. The old days on Cape you would get out of your vehicle and the first whiff of air you breathed in had the scent of the scrub pines which have a more pleasant scent than regular pines. Don't smell that anymore.

Dreaming I guess. I still think the Cape is better than say living i9n Worcester or some boring town over the bridge. I can be fishing for bass in ten minutes from my driveway. Actually living on the upper Cape has proved to be an advantage from living on the outer Cape. Canal is 11 miles from home, the Elizabeth Islands are a ten minute ride to the boat ramp and 15 mitues later, voila, start casting. The bay side is 15 minutes and Race Point 55 minutes. I can be in Rhode Island in an hour (God forbid, just kidding) and in Ct in and hour and a half to join my bud for the boat ride to Fishers Island.

The only part that sucks is crossing the bridge twice each day to make a decent living.

Heroin has become a real big problem in the south shore and I am sure it is hitting the cape hard, Western MA and the cape are going to be havens for meth in the near future

everyone wanted cheaper help,,Well! now you've got them and all the %$%$%$%$ and friends they brought with them.

i totally disagree... the DEA and the prohibition of all drugs is what is driving this drug business ....not the people doing the drugs but the profitability of either making them or distributing them for profit.

once you take that profit margin away ..there is no need to break into a persons home to find drug money ...because if they are free...you wont need any money to buy them....and because they are free..there will be no profitability to import them either....

it's all about the --->$$$$$$$$$$$$MONEY$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Raven thats what Sweden thought also. You must remember NEEDLE PARK! They legalized everything. They just ended up with so many more junkies than the rest of Europe it was a tragedy.

This is the original war on terror. This one has to be won before any other war can be. Drug dealers are truly the worlds greatest threats against peace.

Besides what I allready said the theory of "soldiering" here comes to mind and into play. Soldiering occurs when other higher performing individuals under-perform to hide/camoflage the activities of a lazy/sickly/not so intelligent person in the workplace by covering up for him/her by underperforming themsleves so that poor employee doesn't stick out. This happens because it is easier to slink down the slope than walk up the slope. This theory also transfers to drug use. Thier are many more people out there that would use drugs if they were legal and readily available in a pure unadulterated form. They are not legal for the most part, which keeps many potential addicts from starting to use. Think of the possibilities if heroin was legal.. The manufacturers of "narcan", the drug injected under the tongue by your local fire department paramedics that saves the overdosing addicts life would be a stock to invest in.

Karl F has hit the nail right on the head :smash: I keep writing Ted kennedy and asking if the Air Force can please start cleaning up the Rt 28 area from west Harwich right through Hyannis with some 500 lb bombs but they keep telling me they don't have the money. What a #*$%^ hole Dennis port and South Yarmouth have turned in to. The court report should be re named the comedy report. Because all I do is laugh when I read it. :bl2:

Jon,I have hope for South Yarmouth on Rte 28, the new Shaw's has helped that area a lot, if only Job Lot were forced to improve that building as well...

But Big Fish is 100% right, it's all about drugs, period, end of story. I work as a patrolman in Yarmouth. All I do all day is pick up the pieces of what is left over when drugs take ahold of someone's life. Domestic? He's on Oxycontins, Your car got broken into? That herion addict knows that people on Cape are still foolish enough to leave their cars unlocked with money in them overnight!!! Your home got B&E'd while you were away? More drugs. Car crash on Buck Island road? Oh, wait, that person is only drunk, yeah, I know, it's 11am, but c'mon, a man's gotta relax right? People living in motels victimizing everyone? Drugs. Your tools got stolen from your jobsite? Drugs. Copper wire stolen? Drugs. 7-11 held up? Drugs, drugs, drugs.

The motels along Route 28 are another rant in and of themselves, yet they are almost as big a reason for the decline of Cape Cod as the drugs. They have mortgages, they need to pay the bills, so they rent to anyone! I spend so much time at motels it would make your head spin, and not to help tourists, but to arrest the criminals that call them home! And who is going to visit the Cape, rent a room that smells like someone has fried a steak in butter all winter while smoing three packs a day, and then return next summer? No wonder families go elsewhere....

I was born and raised here on the Cape. What is happening is very sad. It is turning into a cespool if you ask me. Drive into Hyannis if you dare, it's called "Brockton by the Sea" to those in the know, or sometimes, "Lil' Brockton".

This topic always brings me down, time to go tuna fishing!:kewl:

Alright, it's safe to come out, my rant is over, for now....

guys, has this spread to the islands yet?

guys, has this spread to the islands yet?

Oh Yeah Ben, the DEA is always busting someone actually bringing it in from the islands to the Cape. MV has a problem more than ACK does.

I'd give my eye teeth and left marble to be able to live full time on the Cape again. But I left for the buck and the buck has trapped me. It ain't all about money, it's about quality. I used to be able to cast a few after work, or dig some clams, try that in Clinton. My wife couldn't stand the solitude of the Cape in Winter. I thought it was the best time. No Summer Squid, Deer hunting , quohogging, cod fishing. But then again that was 30 years ago and I was 100 years younger...

Western MA and the cape are going to be havens for meth in the near future



what? drugs in western mass???? no.......:fishslap:

Thutty years ago we only had the comedy criminals out on the end. The murders were rare but noteworthy, witness Tony Chop-chop and the LAdy of the Dunes.
The guy who robbed the P-Town PO and locked himself in until morning. "What are you doing here?" , "Looking for my umployment check, it's late" He'd opened everything there.
And robbed the bank "Gimme all yer money or I'll blow your head %$%$%$%$ Of course no gun. " Ok, but you realize that you'll go to jail for this so you probably should open an account for your kids" "ok" and shoves the money back to the teller.
The Boatload of pot moored at McMillin Wharf that was mysteriously emply the next morning, Nobody saw nothing. But tons of pot was gone. They vacuumed 20 pounds of pot DUST outa that boat.
The pot smuggler that ran aground in Blackfish Creek and threw his cargo overboard. The next morning he was high and dry at low tide surrounded by his cargo.
This was the 70's and it was a riot. Now it's not so friggin funny, people are getting hurt.

Back when I was a kid, my family was on a day trip to Nantucket and someone in my family had lost something. I remember walking into the police station with my dad. No one turned in the lost item, but the desk officer and my dad started chatting, and one of the things I remember the cop saying was that they didn't even know where the cell keys were. It had been that long since they had to put someone in there :hee:

Speaking of MV and drug smugglers/mules, there's a spot on the south shore Up Island called Rum Runners' Rocks. I guess smuggling contraband onto the island isn't exactly a recent phenomenon ;)

We had a couple memorable nights on Monomoy in the late 70's when the Coasties were running up and down the island shore at night with searchlights looking for bales washing up. I never found one myself, I looked real hard.:uhuh:

The Coasties really f-d up the fishing those nights though.:smash:

Jon,I have hope for South Yarmouth on Rte 28, the new Shaw's has helped that area a lot, if only Job Lot were forced to improve that building as well...

But Big Fish is 100% right, it's all about drugs, period, end of story. I work as a patrolman in Yarmouth. All I do all day is pick up the pieces of what is left over when drugs take ahold of someone's life. Domestic? He's on Oxycontins, Your car got broken into? That herion addict knows that people on Cape are still foolish enough to leave their cars unlocked with money in them overnight!!! Your home got B&E'd while you were away? More drugs. Car crash on Buck Island road? Oh, wait, that person is only drunk, yeah, I know, it's 11am, but c'mon, a man's gotta relax right? People living in motels victimizing everyone? Drugs. Your tools got stolen from your jobsite? Drugs. Copper wire stolen? Drugs. 7-11 held up? Drugs, drugs, drugs.

The motels along Route 28 are another rant in and of themselves, yet they are almost as big a reason for the decline of Cape Cod as the drugs. They have mortgages, they need to pay the bills, so they rent to anyone! I spend so much time at motels it would make your head spin, and not to help tourists, but to arrest the criminals that call them home! And who is going to visit the Cape, rent a room that smells like someone has fried a steak in butter all winter while smoing three packs a day, and then return next summer? No wonder families go elsewhere....

I was born and raised here on the Cape. What is happening is very sad. It is turning into a cespool if you ask me. Drive into Hyannis if you dare, it's called "Brockton by the Sea" to those in the know, or sometimes, "Lil' Brockton".

This topic always brings me down, time to go tuna fishing!:kewl:

Alright, it's safe to come out, my rant is over, for now....

Hotels in South Yarmouth?!?!?!?! you mean drug stores don't you? I spent some time over there trying to find a repo car and the stuff I saw would changed my view on that area for ever, I have lived my whole life here and it is no longer the place I remember. I would never bring a family to vacation to that area ever again. Time to move to Maine, Hooper my hat is off to you for having to work in that area :kewl: its funny that Yarmouth Port and N Dennis are the exact oppisites as there soutside counter parts huh? Soon there will be two types of people left on Cape in the next few years, super rich and super poor the middle guys are getting squezzed out almost time to call the real estate agent :rtfm: and cash in.