Crime Chatter

One of the things that I essay a good bit on in Germany....is this transitional period of the past forty-odd years with organized crime growth, and the police forced into a different type of organization than what they were in the 1980s. 

There's a good story over at ARD (public TV, Channel One) today, which addresses the organized crime effort, and the national police (BKA) efforts.

The term often used by the German police is 'clan'.  The groups are generally split up into nationalities.  You have the Serbian clans, the Russian clans, the Italian clans, the Lebanese clans, the Tunisian clans, etc. 

A political hot-topic?  These crime episodes and busts are actively carried in local news reporting and newspapers.  The politicians will hype the positive side that this clan was taken down.  In one recent Berlin episode....a number of high-end cars were confiscated from a clan, and the cops sold the cars later. 

How the growth occurred?  My humble belief is that some minor clan action was going on in the 1980s, but when the Wall came down....Germany was simply more accessible, and various groups arrived to set up shop.

So to the story from ARD....that cops believe that the numbers are going down, and they are making an impact?  Part of this is true, and numbers go to support that.  Drug sales?  No real indication of spiraling downward drug use or less dealers on the street.  If anything, you can go around Frankfurt's 'junkie-ville' (the west side of the Bahnhof area) and bean-count easily 2,000 junkies in a one-by-two mile area of downtown.  Various areas of Hamburg, Berlin and Dusseldorf have the same problem (if not more).

If you live outside of the urban zones?  That's the curious thing....you could live in an area like Damflos, Germany (deep into the Pfalz), and see virtually nothing on crime in your typical ten-year period.  You could live around Wiesbaden, and note some serious criminal behavior or act on a weekly basis....or watch some violent reaction to a bus-ticket audit on a morning bus.  It all depends on where you live.