crime and the rich person

So there have been some pretty scary crimes happening nearby, in which women (most with kids, but some older women too) are being mugged in shopping center parking lots in the middle of the day. Many of the women have reported having a gun poked into their ribs while buckling their kid into the car, or with their kids still in the shopping buggy. The crooks demand her jewelry and sometimes take the car. Naturally, it has all the moms around here pretty spooked.

What irritates me is the community response to the crimes. The targets are in affluent neighborhoods and are exclusively women with large and expensive rings on their hands. An email message is going around demanding that the city government take action and “let them know that it is unacceptable to pay what we pay in taxes to have to live in fear.” While I definitely agree that we shouldn’t have to be afraid to go to the grocery store with our kids, I hate the implication that because “we” are affluent, “we” should not have to be the victims of crime. It sounds as if poor people, who presumably pay fewer taxes (although maybe not), can be sacrificed to criminals with no remorse. I know the email author probably did not mean to make that implication, but I still sense that there is a presumption that rich people should be exempt from crime. People, we ALL should be exempt from crime, but crime happens. Criminals know that rich people have more money (and more expensive jewelry) than poor people, so aren’t rich people an obvious target? I guess all that crime that happens in poor neighborhoods is just a-ok, since those people don’t pay much in taxes.

I guess it’s easy for me to be flip about this, because my modest wedding rings don’t really make me a target. But I’m going to put my faith in the police department and assume that they are doing their best to catch these criminals. I can only hope that people living in poorer neighborhoods have the same faith, but I somehow doubt it.