There was a short interview with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday....via N-TV (the German commercial news network). They have the tendency to ask dramatic questions that the public news folks (ARD and ZDF) would avoid.
So the question came around to the concept of NO-GO areas in Germany. Basically, in a short statement....she said sure....yes, there are such places in existence.
She then kinded added that she thinks a zero-tolerance policy on crime needs to prevail.
That was mostly it....the Chancellor did say that some areas (without names) are bad enough that cops won't enter. Later after this event....the public relations folks when asked to identify the areas....declined, and said that this was not a federal matter. It's a city-by-city or state matter. To this....they are correct.
So, what are the no-go areas, and their identifying situations?
I would divide them up into three key features:
1. You have a ghetto area that has developed in a highly urbanized city, and youth-gangs or drug-gangs occupy some portion (maybe all) of the no-go area. Taurnus Strasse in Frankfurt (2 blocks from the train station) would be one.
2. You have a clan-like group which has basically taken over a suburb of the town (Duisburg in the north is a good example), and they run things. Cops don't show up for problems without a minimum of four, and if there's an arrest required.....probably upwards to a minimum of ten cops.
3. Drug-sales zone only. Gorlitzer Park in Berlin is a good example. It was a great city park, and in the past decade, it's become a full-time druggie park. Locals don't use the park, and some would suggest that it might as well be bulldozed to the ground.
How many no-go areas exist? In the entire state of Hessen, I would take a guess that we are only talking about three or four areas existing now. Within Frankfurt city, I can only think of two areas that I'd avoid. Wiesbaden has two areas which are 'blooming' into such areas, and both are places that I'd recommend you avoid after 10 PM.....mostly because of the drug-thugs, and small-town robbery going on. Kassel is fairly safe.
In the whole of Germany? I'd put it at least than fifty. In the rural regions and towns of less than 20,000 residents....there just won't be no-go areas in existence. The more ability that you have to hide and run around in the landscape....means that political folks don't worry as much about being fired, or judges worry about public anger directed at them.
The Gorlitzer Park is a great example. The political folks of Berlin have no problem in telling the cops to just skip the park and avoid making it a public nuisance. Once the general public around the park reach some stage with a murder....then the political folks will pay some price and the park will either be cleaned up.....or bull-dozed.
Is it a local issue and not a national issue? Yes. If you held the local mayor, the local judges, the local prosecutor and the cops responsible....they would be fired if unable to fix the issue. Newspapers shield and protect those individuals to a great extent, and you can lay some blame upon them.
Merkel admitting this? Well....if some idiot journalist wants to counter her claim....they'd have to go out into the no-go areas, without police protection, and then grin as they realize they might be robbed or assaulted.
Now, all of this said....are you safer in the no-go area of Frankfurt than you are in west Memphis, or downtown Baltimore? Yes....the Frankfurt no-go would be safer. You could go into the heart of Hamburg's St Pauli district at 10 PM, and quietly walk around and be 99-percent safe. Would I walk around Washington DC's east-side at 10 PM? No way.
All of this mafia trouble....drug-thug activity....punk-crime....could be eradicated in three years very easily....if you found judges, prosecutors, police chiefs and mayors willing to clean up the bad behavior.
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