How much is too much?

  Any amount of crime is too much crime. Let me say that right at the start.
However, I’m always a bit surprised when I hear people talk about Savannah’s crime problem. Is it really worse than anyplace else?
The little town I grew up in has just 6,000 people. Yet just now when I checked the Web site of the local daily, I read that yesterday, police were called to a scene where shots were fired, arrested a child molester in a city park near a group of children and investigated a robbery where a safe was broken into at a downtown business.
A year ago in that same town, two suspects were arrested in a torture/murder case. The man who was murdered apparently hadn’t paid for his cocaine.
When I lived there, we routinely had items stolen from our yard and our cars. And this small town is in a rural area. But crime happens everywhere — at least everywhere there are people.
At night, I drive a trolley for a local tour company. After my last tour, I’m always approached by people who are afraid to walk back to their hotels or parking places because they’ve heard Savannah is a high-crime area.
I tell them to just stay onboard the trolley and I drop them where they need to go. Yet in the nearly two years I’ve been driving the trolley, I haven’t seen one incident of crime, and I’m often out past midnight.
Maybe I’m just lucky. Maybe I’ve had some close calls I never knew about. Or maybe the problem isn’t as severe as some people have made it out to be.
It’s always good to be cautious, no matter where you are. Keep a look out for suspicious characters, and walk with your head up, acting with confidence, whether you feel safe or not.
But to spend your life in fear, refusing to venture downtown or leave your house after dark is extreme. I refuse to be held captive in my own home. And I refuse to believe that Savannah has a crime problem equal to or worse than that of New York City or Washington, D.C.

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