Berlin and Crime

It was a page two type story brought up by RBB (the public TV network of Berlin) today.

The local railway/subway organization of Berlin (BVG, Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe)....says they will now provide employees of their security service with bulletproof vests starting in 2018.

Additionally.....security batons are going to be issued out as well.

What's going on?  Well....physical attacks onboard the Berlin subway system.

For 2016, there were 555 attacks noted against the BVG security folks.  If you figure 260-odd total employees within the service.....it means in one single year, you will face at least two acts of violence.

Of the 555 attacks....at least sixty of these episodes meant the subway guy had to be excused from work for a minimum of three days.

If you count total attacks (against passengers and subway folks), for 2016, it's near 3,100 episodes.  Roughly 350 of these were deemed robberies, and 84 were some type of sexual assault. 

The subway system?  That's where the bulk of the attacks took place.

In some ways, metropolitan areas of Germany (not just Berlin) have all fallen into a pattern of hyped-up crime.  I won't say it's a migrant thing because it's been on a gradual increase for a number of years. 

End of the story?  My guess is that the BVG folks will have to up their security folks by 50-percent by the end of 2019.  I'd also suggest that they start talking about tasers shortly for them as well.

A bold new world in Germany?  Yeah.....in 1978, you would not have suggested this type of violence on public transport in Germany.  On a typical Saturday night in Frankfurt, there was nothing to worry about.  A lot of things have changed over the past forty-odd years.