A repeated bad experience once more at the end of the academic year 2008-09

Today's strip.

Manager has got the spare part Easy Rider needs for tonight's All Stars' Special and Chocolate Pie on the Beach Competition. First rate stuff, from Old Crazy Prof. Pot, who will raise hell with his students first and then will get depressed, sullen and resented, as usual. Manager wants five more, Easy Rider bargains for two more and some smoke.

How many victims of petty crime, harassment, molestation, mobbing, blackmail and related concepts at University? In what way can these “problems” affect life on campus.

This year, like last year, like on a number of other occasions in the recent past my garage has been burglarized and somebody has stolen some of the most important and expensive pieces from my scooter. During these years I have spent almost the same amount of money to repair my motorbike as its original price. These actions usually take place when there is a big "scooter and beer" party or event –end of school and university, beginning of summer and so on- in the city and, therefore, trading stolen parts can be highly profitable for those in the business. I must confess that these repeated assaults against my property affect me deeply in different ways. I feel humiliated and threatened.I must be alert. If these thieves know about my property and visit my scooter periodically this means that they know me about me and my hereabouts and they can try some other criminal course of action if profitable or they can "sell the information" about me to other gangs. Monipodio, Divinas Palabras, Oliver Twist, Viridiana are some of the references I keep in mind when I think of this sort of people. Of course drugs and thrillers are also there, but I'd say that the procedure here seems to be quite classical. Thinking about my scooter being quartered by thieves I always think of the Middle Ages and also of pimps exploiting their victims. You should consent to these periodical "molestations" and consider the expense cheap. Ah! And accept it as the normal course of life. I wonder how many people at university can be the object of prey of thieves, pimps, dealers and similar. Also to what an extent this can affect teaching, research and personal relations on campus. Do "they" also control the students?

Why me? Am I that weak? I suppose that this is an unavoidable question in all cases. I am deeply concened for those people who may have his health affected or can be the object of easy violence.

I won't be able to have my scooter fixed in the near future because a big union strike is taking place these days and all the works are closed. Political strife and social crime should not be confused. Something specially worrying is that in this kind of exceptional circumstances social abuse and crime can increase and be even more pernicious.

Today I should be writing my final comments on how the year did in Grammar, but, frankly, I’m not much in the mood to talk about communicative patterns. Well, in a way I’m talking about definitions and vocabulary. I have also done a cartoon. I was thinking of Dashiell Hammett and Jean Gabin. Social violence and political violence is not the same, not even in a dictatorship. To what an extent is this kind of social petty crime affecting many of us both consciously and unconsciously? In moments of economic hardship and strong political controversy we must always remember that social crime must be not confused. It must prevented and controlled strictly according to the rules of Justice.

I have done some preliminar homework on some basic definitions and concepts.

On Repeated burglary
and victimization.

By most definitions, repeat victimization, or revictimization, occurs when the same type of crime incident is experienced by the same—or virtually the same—victim or target within a specific period of time such as a year. Repeat victimization refers to the total number of offenses experienced by a victim or target including the initial and subsequent offenses. A person's house may be burglarized twice in a year or 10 times, and both examples are considered repeats.

The term "victimization" usually refers to people, such as a person who has been victimized by domestic violence. But repeat victimization can best be understood as repeat targets since a victim may be an individual, a dwelling unit, a business at a specific address, or even a business chain with multiple locations. Even motor vehicles may be repeat victims. Later in this guide, we discuss how to distinguish repeat victims in police data by address, victim's name, and other identifiers.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

Office of
Community Oriented Policing Services

http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/files/ric/Publications/e07055803.pdf

P.S. It seems evident that the need of be precise language to describe negative experiences and critical situations cannot be questioned or relativized. I acknowledge that I should work on my vocabulary a little bit more on this area.

I've selected one of the most representative musical scenes from Oliver. A classic, but easy to be updated to the present trade conditions.