Yesterday evening, I heard some noise outside in the parking lot of the apartment building where I live in downtown Dickinson, North Dakota.  I looked out the window, and there was a City of Dickinson Police car, and a Stark County Sheriff truck.  It appeared that they were looking for an apartment resident in order to take them into custody.

In the one year that I have lived at this apartment building in downtown Dickinson, I would say that the Police or Sheriff have been here about fifteen times.  But that number would be too low, because the Police or Sheriff are here several times each month, and I am not even home half of the time, to witness the other times that they may have been here.

One of the frustrating things about living in Dickinson, North Dakota, is that the people here don’t even know that they are any different than people living elsewhere in the United States.  The criminality of people here, far exceeds any place else that I have ever lived.  I will give some examples.

The very first apartment building that I ever lived at, was in Gainesville, Florida. In the three years that I lived at this apartment building, where 50% of the residents were students, the Police might have shown up a total of two times.

The second apartment building that I ever lived at, was in Tampa, Florida.  In the two years that I lived at this apartment building, the Police might have shown up a total of three times.

At this apartment building where I live in Dickinson, the Police have shown up an estimated forty times this past year.  And, I wish that the Police would have shown up even more times than this, to handle the drug dealers, trespassers, suspicious acting people, reckless drivers, and other problems.

I began thinking about how to describe the criminality of people in Dickinson, North Dakota versus elsewhere.  Below I will give my estimate of the number of adults with a criminal record in the other areas where I have lived.

• Town where I grew up in Florida………….18% of adults with criminal record
• Gainesville, Florida………………………….18% of adults with criminal record
• Tampa, Florida……………………………….20% of adults with criminal record
• Flagstaff, Arizona……………………………..15% of adults with criminal record
• Eastern Idaho…………………………………20% of adults with criminal record
• Fort Worth, Texas……………………………..20% of adults with criminal record
• Dickinson, North Dakota……………………..35% of adults with criminal record

If Dickinson, North Dakota would not have had an oil boom………..20% of adults with criminal record, just like most other places.

The high number of criminal people living in Dickinson, North Dakota is due to the oil boom.  The oil boom brought criminal people to Dickinson.  For some people with a criminal record, the oil boom in North Dakota would allow them to get a job without their criminal record in a different state being discovered.  For other people with a criminal record, it was primarily the rumor of high pay that brought them to Dickinson.

For some people with a criminal record, they moved to North Dakota with the expectation of either getting a high paying job, and if not, they would steal from the people with high paying jobs, or sell them illegal drugs.

The oil boom also turned some local people into criminals, after they were introduced to illegal drugs, they became a user, a dealer, or a thief in order to pay for their drug addiction.

At the oil field service companies and construction companies where I have worked in Dickinson, I would estimate that 40% to 45% of my male co-workers had a criminal record.  In previous blog posts, I wrote about looking up the company managers and foremen of the companies where I worked in Dickinson, and most of them had criminal records for assault, drug possession, and DUI.

At the convenience stores, fast food restaurants, restaurants, and bars in Dickinson, I would estimate that 35% of the women employees have criminal records for drug possession, bad check writing, assault, or DUI.

Dickinson, North Dakota is not like other places in the United States.  I have complained and written blog posts about the Police in Dickinson following people around, trying to come up with a reason to pull them over and question them.  I was complaining that the Police were treating everyone like they were suspected of being a criminal.  The truth is, that about one out of three people in Dickinson is a criminal, and they act like it.