I don't consider myself an adventurer. I have a belief that people are mostly good and you can go most places, even very poor places, and people will treat you well if you treat them well. I don't travel around with a driver or with "security". We're all human beings sharing a planet. I travel to make connections with my fellow human beings (regardless of whether those fellow human beings are rich or poor, black or white, or whatever). I like this video by a young American couple who went to Haiti with an attitude to travel similar to mine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41xaVQ7KOJ8&t=644s
I don't really know why Jamaica's crime rate is so high, but I still feel like *most* people are nice and I'm still going to trust that I'll be fine if I treat people well and am friends with the good people. If I start feeling unsafe I will leave. I will not live behind big security walls with security guards.
You might be on the right track, Irine. My guess is the disproportionately high crime rate has to do with the juxtaposition of rich tourists vacationing in luxury, right alongside the poor rural communities. That, together with the history of being a brutal slave colony, probably leads to resentment, and may account for the high crime rate. Higher for example than in neighboring Haiti which is much poorer but does not have the huge tourist business that Jamaica has. Just a guess. I'm not a sociologist. There is a new book by an actual Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson (who is Jamaican) which I have not yet read, but it appears to explore these issues based on the book reviews.
https://www.amazon.com/Confounding-I...5489533&sr=8-1
Originally Posted by rtitle
). Thanks for the book reference, I'll read this one for sure.
