Crime in the Algarve
It has been an uncomfortable end to the week for me in the Algarve. One
of the ongoing topics here is the problem of crime. There is a basic
misconception that Portugal is a quiet, bumbling and honest country
where you can leave your door unlocked for weeks on end. On the other
hand, there is another school of thought which sees the Algarve as
being a place where it really is unsafe to walk about after dark, and
where you are at risk of burglaries, some of which are quite violent.
The truth is of course, as usual, somewhere in-between. I have on
several occasions gone off for the weekend and left the french windows
wide open, and they face my front gate. There is no evidence that
anyone came in, or took anything. Mind you, I have done exactly the
same in London. In fact, I left my car keys in the door of my car in
Hayes for a whole week once, and no-one nicked the car, but on the
other hand I have had five cars stolen from private parking areas in
London over a twenty year period.
There is this contradictory situation in the Algarve. On the one hand
there is a large contingent of charming old world people who would not
dream of entering your home, and would indeed protect it for you if you
are away. And then there are those who creep about in the night, and
nick anything that isn't nailed down.
One of our Portuguese friends has had a lot of his antiques stolen. It
turned out that his next door neighbour was waiting for him to go out
and then breaking in and stealing things.
On the other hand, an alarming number of people in the Loule area have
been broken into time and time again, and treated quite brutally.
One thing is clear, and that is, there is a mentality that is apparent
in rather a large proportion of the population that if they want
something they will just take it. One neighbour has a lemon tree in her
front garden. People pick the lemons without so much as a
by-your-leave, but there are those who will come by with a sack and
strip the tree.
Unfortunately I have now joined the list of those who've been targeted.
Locals come across the fields and steal from my garden and the garden
shed. It has now got to the stage where I cant leave anything about the
place. I have to lock up the ladders, hide the wheelbarrow, and make
sure all the shed doors are secure. It isn't a nice feeling. Where I
used to leave hats and shoes around the place, only to accidentally
find them sitting on a wall six months later, I now suspect they
wouldn't last more than six days. It's all rather depressing. It's not
nice to feel unsafe in one's own home. And I now have to think
seriously about security fences and surveillance systems.
The stupid thing is I know exactly who is stealing from me. After all,
I have caught them at it, so naturally I made the journey down to the
local police station to make a denunciation. That in itself was a
traumatic experience. I made sure I knew crucial terms in Portuguese,
and even slipped a dictionary into my pocket. I was first in the queue,
in fact I seemed to be the only one denouncing anyone that morning. And
I was there nearly two and a half hours while my details were taken and
put on a two page form. The computer system is totally up the creek,
and every time the policeman hit a carriage return the computer
accessed the police service database which ran at a snail's pace.
Whoever set up the system was a twit who didn't understand how to do it
properly. I could have improved their system given a couple of hours
work on the program, yet I am not a programmer. Obviously there is
no-one capable of even working out what's wrong, let along putting it
right, in the establishment.
The result of this is that I nearly fell asleep in the interview room
while we waited for the computer to access the database after each
carriage return. Two and a half hours later the result was a two page
document with perhaps a total of 500 words in it. Productivity in the
police force is clearly low, low, low. I was told that the system was
sometimes even slower.
Meanwhile in the next office there were three officers who spent the
entire two and a half hours chatting and watching t.v. on a large
screen hung from the ceiling.
It seems to me that the police force could be halved and no-one would
notice. I'm not sure what it is that they are supposed to do apart from
hassling motorists. They certainly aren't out on the streets. We have
saturday and sunday markets, but rarely is there a police presence. If
you call them they take hours to arrive. Presumably one has to wait
until they finish watching their favourite program. And why is it that
the police force is not funded by the insurance companies? After all,
it seems that all they do is fill in forms, and give you a crime
number. The first question I was asked was, "Are you making an
insurance claim?"
And that's the problem. What happens now I have made a denunciation?
They should get down to my neighbour's place and start hassling them.
Fat chance! They will just sit in the ante-room and watch t.v. while
the thieves plan their next raid. Ultimately, that's a big problem
here. There is effectively no deterrent. You need to buy a gun. In that
sense it's the wild west. If I blew someone's knee off they wouldn't be
stealing from me again, and I could easily explain it away as an
accident. The trouble is I would then be waiting for a return attack
from my victim. So we have crime followed by deterrence followed by
revenge. So, what's the answer?
john
Podcast: