Regarding vacationing elsewhere, many of us own timeshares or condo's in SXM and would have to sell them in order to travel elsewhere. We bought our place in 1986 when there was really no crime to speak of and we fell in love with SXM. Now we feel like this is our second home. We know many people at our resort and have met many people who live on the island. The love and beauty of the island pulls us back every year. And we enjoy seeing all of the friends we have met over the past 30 years. We really don't have any interest of going elsewhere as we feel very safe in our resort. We no longer have that same comfort level when driving around the island. Unfortunately, many of the islands in the Caribbean are dealing with crime issues so we learn to just change the way we used to travel. Wrist wallet instead of purse. No expensive jewelry, etc. and just an ounce of precaution usually works. Some of our good friends from Rainbow were at Le Gallion Beach one day and there were three young boys eyeing them. She didn't feel comfortable with the situation so they packed up and left. We try to go to beaches like Dreams, Karacters, and Zafiro. We never have issues at these beaches and feel relatively safe. We been traveling to St. Maarten for 30 years and only had one issue, but noting life threatening. I'm hopeful that the government will again take a serious look at the current crime situation and start hiring more police etc. perhaps if we send letters to the editor, this will help as well.