Top 5 Dangerous Neighborhoods In Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

I have almost a year planning a trip to a country in South America, and since I am such a planner, I like to plan everything I will do well in advance, too much in advance I would say.

That said, I don’t like “traditional tourism”, where everyone goes, I would like to get to know neighborhoods, mingle with people, walk the streets freely.

Then the question came to my mind, what are the dangerous neighborhoods of the country I plan to visit? why don’t I have a similar topic on my website where I expose what are the most dangerous neighborhoods in the Dominican Republic?

Having explained the argument of the topic, and that it is not just something to highlight negative things about the Dominican Republic, I start with the ranking of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the Dominican Republic.

Statistically speaking, they are all located in the city of Santo Domingo.

1-Los Guandules 

Los Guandules is a neighborhood in the north of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, is a large conglomerate of shacks on the banks of the Ozama River.

It is a very vulnerable neighborhood, with 137,000 inhabitants (15% of the total urban population), 33% of households living in poverty and 16% unemployment.

Although in Los Guandules as in any other neighborhood you can take a “village bath” in Los Guandules there is absolutely nothing to see, and in fact, there are parts of the neighborhood that should not be visited.

The only time I went to this neighborhood, I did it for an urban planning project at the university, I was walking around with a camera taking pictures of the banks of the Ozama River.

Many people started to look at me with an astonished faces, and an elderly man called me and told me “what are you doing with that camera!, get out of here, they have already tracked you down”.

I don’t think I’ve ever walked so fast in my life when I got out of there…

2-La Ciénaga

Like the previous neighborhood, la ciénaga is also on the edge of the Ozama River, like all other neighborhoods, la ciénaga has many young, honest, and hardworking people.

But the pitiful reality is that these people are not in the majority, this neighborhood is full of dangerous people.

Once I was able to visit it, a university friend lived in this neighborhood, I could feel the atmosphere of danger and tension in the neighborhood, even though I visited in the middle of the day.

3-Cristo Rey

I know this neighborhood like the back of my hand, I was born and raised there, it seems to me that Cristo Rey is the second largest sector in all of Santo Domingo, and one of the most dangerous as well.

Cristo Rey, as I remember it in my childhood, was not such a bad neighborhood, but as the years went by things got worse.

There came a time in Cristo Rey when we had to go out to buy dinner at 5 o’clock in the afternoon because we could not go out at night, every night there was a shooting.

Most of the young people who grew up in my environment died in the “street”, others are out of the country, and a few managed to overcome.

In spite of everything, I miss the neighborhood, for me, it was wonderful to live there…I mean, I miss those times, I don’t miss living there at all…

4-Villa Consuelo

Villa Consuelo is a very commercial area and at the same time a very dangerous neighborhood where you have to be very careful.

Once, out of ignorance, when I was looking for my first house to live in, I only found an apartment there.

I asked the lawyer and landlord: “tell me the truth, is it dangerous around here?”, the lawyer looked at me, he spent a few seconds thinking and told me “my son*, you look like a very nice person, look for a house somewhere else”.

*In the Dominican Republic a person is called “mi hijo” (my son) out of compassion or sympathy.

5-Capotillo

This neighborhood is extremely violent and dangerous, it is not a game, I am Dominican and I have walked and lived in several of the neighborhoods I mention in this topic, but I do not dare to walk the streets of this neighborhood alone.

Capotillo is recognized throughout Santo Domingo as one of the most dangerous and violent sectors of all.

Only once I entered this sector, I was intimidated the whole time, the reputation of this sector is so well known that even the Dominican police have limits to entry.

Honorable (?) Mentions 

La Puya

Let’s put it this way: you can give me a mansion in this neighborhood and I don’t want it.

No offense, but this neighborhood creeps me out, having grown up in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods like Cristo Rey, the times I went to La puya I couldn’t help but feel threatened.

Besides the fact that I saw horrible things happen in this sector.

Los Alcarrizos

I’ve only been to this area once and left as quickly as possible, that was years ago to meet a young lady.

I went at four o’clock in the afternoon and felt like I was going to the end of the world when I arrived at the young lady’s house, I was only there for an hour, at six in the evening her mom said to me:

“Don’t take it personally but you should leave now, it’s getting dark and things get ugly around here.”

For a moment I felt like I was in a horror movie in a vampire neighborhood, but being from Cristo Rey, I understood perfectly what she was telling me.

I left and never came back.

Other honorable (?) mentions:

• Villas Agricolas
• Villa Francisca
• Ensanche Simón Bolivar
• Las cañitas
• Villa Juana
• Ensanche Espaillat
• La Zurza
• Gualey
• San Carlos
• 27 de Febrero
• Los Mina

All of these neighborhoods can be very dangerous.

On raids in these neighborhoods

The stigma of danger in these neighborhoods is so intense that you can go to jail for just walking or sitting around doing nothing, yes, although it may seem exaggerated, it happened to me once.

In these neighborhoods the police often make raids, this practice is indiscriminate, and not everyone who lives in these neighborhoods is a bad person.

For example, I was once taken to jail, simply for literally sitting in front of my own house in Cristo Rey, at 7 p.m., sharing with friends.

I was a young worker and college student at the time, like many in the neighborhoods, it was one of the most unpleasant and degrading experiences in my life, they drove me around the neighborhood in the back of a pickup truck as if I was a thug.

If you wonder why I did not say anything when they took me in the raid from the front of my own house, I know the culture of my country very well, and I know how to read people’s body language.

The person who “arrested” me looked like a high-ranking military man, these people usually abuse their authority, they are rude, and can hit you if you try to explain yourself to them.

I only spent about an hour in a piss-smelling cell, that hour seemed like an eternity.

Worst of all, just like me, there were innocent young men in there, who even had their work uniforms on, I mean, they were caught coming home from work.

Imagine coming home from a long day at work and getting arrested simply because you live in a “dangerous neighborhood”.

Concluding remarks

Lately, I saw an attempt to make tourism in the neighborhoods of Santo Domingo, maybe it can work someday, but I think we are still a little far from that.

An example of that is the Comuna 13 neighborhood in Medellin Colombia, which is a tremendous tourist attraction.

If you really want to take a “village bath” (meeting with ordinary people) in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, avoid these neighborhoods, and visit the Colonial Zone and all the commercial areas of Duarte Avenue, is quite safe. (just watch out for pickpockets).

If you plan to visit any of these neighborhoods anyway, be very careful, and be accompanied by locals, during daylight hours, maybe someday they will be worthy of a tourist tour.

Read this topic if you are interested in knowing which are the 5 richest neighborhoods in Santo Domingo Dominican Republic.