Stretched
to the Limit: Has the German State Lost Control
After
the violent excesses in Cologne on New Year's Eve, German government
failures have come to light, with many asking if the country is still
safe. Police and the justice system have been stretched to their
limits. New laws won't fix the problem, but extra personnel could. By
SPIEGEL Staff
January 21, 2016 –
07:00 PM
Of course Tunisia
could take back a few Tunisians. Germany would like to repatriate
about 1,200 of the country's nationals, but the problems start with
the fact that the Tunisian Embassy in Berlin isn't interested, has no
time or has other reasons for why "establishing contact with the
embassy" has been "extremely difficult," as an
official German government document reads.
Tunisia could, of
course, easily identify its own citizens using their fingerprints,
which would preclude mix-ups. But German officials can't seem to
reach anybody. The result: Only six Tunisians were deported from
Germany during the first six months of 2015.
Or Algeria. The
Algerians have actually nothing against German inquiries as to
whether they can send home one of the more than 2,000 Algerians who
have been deemed subject to immediate deportation. But the reality is
more complicated. Sometimes there are legal issues, sometimes
humanitarian concerns and sometimes there are reasons that are
impenetrable. In the end, only 24 were sent home.
And finally,
Morocco. When the Germans present an expired passport at the Moroccan
Embassy for one of the 2,300 Moroccans who have been ordered to
leave, it first takes months before a new one is issued. Sometimes,
apparently, it takes forever. Only 23 were sent home in the first
half of last year. "Repatriations to Morocco, and thus the
enforcement of German law, are only possible on an extremely limited
basis due to the uncooperative behavior of the embassy," the
paper reads.
Has the German State
Given Up?
Currently, several
thousand people from the Maghreb region are slated for deportation
from Germany, but they haven't had to leave because the state, in
many respects, has become powerless to act. Not so long ago, it was
just a figure that prompted shoulder-shrugging at most. That's how it
is, it can't be changed, we have to live with it. But after the New
Year's Eve sexual assaults in Cologne, the numbers listed in the
internal paper, which was compiled by German state governments, have
a new significance. The impotence has remained, but the time for
shrugging shoulders has passed. The state stands disgraced and trust
is vanishing -- and not just when it comes to deportations, but when
it comes to everything that a state actually stands for: internal
security. Has the German state given up?
It is a painful
diagnosis, and it goes far beyond the chaotic and horrific scenes in
front of Cologne's main station on New Year's Eve. The state is
suffering from a stress fracture: In key areas it has long been
overwhelmed. It is an uncomfortable realization for the German
people. The same state that records their lives right down to the
smallest taxable detail and last year alone wrote or amended on the
federal level around 8,000 paragraphs of law is now failing at its
most basic tasks: protecting its citizens; law enforcement; security;
public order.
There are financial
reasons for the shortcoming: For decades, Germany has skimped on its
civil service and cut budgets wherever possible. Now Berlin is paying
the price. But the causes go much deeper than that, touching on the
fundamental relationship between the German state and those who have
recently arrived. In Germany, a 66-year-old democracy, the police
have positioned themselves as "friends and helpers," but it
is a promise that young men from North Africa don't immediately
understand.
It is the clash of
two cultures: A constitutional state that emphasizes de-escalation,
integration and the empathetic re-socialization of young offenders;
and immigrants from authoritarian societies who misunderstand the
approach and take advantage of the fact that they, even if they break
the law, are neither deported nor toughly punished.
The consequence is
that, in some places, law and order is restricted, or doesn't exist
at all. Like in Cologne on New Year's Eve. Or in troubled city
quarters in Frankfurt and Berlin during the entire year.
The state has
accepted its own impotence, and it was perhaps possible to accept so
long as tens of thousands of asylum-seekers weren't entering the
country every year. But now Germany is facing an enormous task: that
of absorbing and integrating hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions,
of refugees. It is a challenge that can only be met if Germany once
again begins to consistently enforce its rules.
Police Failures
A good place to
start, particularly given the dark events in Cologne, is with the
police. How is it possible that the square in front of the train
station could morph into a zone of lawlessness? Why was the state not
present on that New Year's Eve night? Was there a lack of police?
Where they overwhelmed by the mob?
By Thursday of last
week, some 650 criminal complaints stemming from New Year's Eve had
been filed in Cologne, half of them for sexual assault, three of them
for alleged rapes. In 103 cases, sexual assault and theft were
combined.
Two weeks after the
attacks, victims were still coming forward, most of them women, even
if they are fully aware that their purses and mobile phones will most
likely never be recovered. And that the men who sexually harassed or
assaulted them will never be identified.
By late last week,
state prosecutors had only identified 13 suspects: eight Moroccans,
four Algerians and a Tunisian. Five of them are in pre-trial
detention, accused of theft, receiving stolen goods and resisting
arrest. Nobody by last Thursday had yet been detained for sexual
assault. Some of the victims have told police they would be able to
identify their assailant, but many others have said they could not.
The four public
prosecutors and the additional 135 investigators belonging to the
special investigations unit assembled to look into the New Year's
crimes are doing what they can to collect evidence. Officials have
collected underwear from many of the victims in the hope of finding
DNA from the perpetrators, from sweat on their fingers, for example.
Police are also hoping for leads acquaintances of the assailants.
They have announced a reward of €10,000 for information leading to
the culprits.
As one of the
detective says, they are looking for "a mass of perpetrators"
-- which means they will have to sift through a massive amount of
data. That includes analyzing, with the help of software, more than
300 hours of footage from CCTV cameras mounted in, on and around the
train station. One of their main discoveries so far, though, has been
the fact that most of the cameras in the station don't work and that
the others are outdated. An equipment renewal is scheduled for 2018.
Officials have also
called on witnesses to upload videos from New Year's Eve to their
website for analysis. But it seems unlikely that footage from the
middle of a crowd on a dark night with bright fireworks going off
will be much help.
What is slowly
becoming clear, however, is why police failed to provide adequate
security that night on the square between the main station and the
Cologne Cathedral. Ralf Jäger, interior minister of North
Rhine-Westphalia, the state in which Cologne is located, believes
much of the blame lies with the city's police department. He says
officers failed to "call for badly needed backup" in time.
They didn't even take advantage of backup that had been made
available.
What Jäger doesn't
mention is that those officers assigned to backup units, had they
been called, would have needed at least two hours to respond. A
report from Jäger's own ministry notes that the state police unit
tasked with providing backup on New Year's Eve was already off duty
by 6 p.m. After that, Jäger's ministry's strategy called for a trio
of units, of 38 officers each, to be on call in case they were
needed.
But they were spread
out across the state. One unit was in Aachen, which is located 70
kilometers (45 miles) west of Cologne, a second was in Gelsenkirchen
(100 kilometers) and a third was in Wuppertal (50 kilometers). The
officers would have needed an hour just to assemble at headquarters
and another hour to get to the Cologne train station.
Not surprisingly,
the police report from Cologne sounds rather different than the one
from the NRW Interior Ministry. The police commander "elected
not to call for backup because, due to the time lag until they would
be available on site, he did not view it as constructive."
Experienced officers also said that even calling for help from
neighboring police forces would have taken too long.
"An impression
developed that the state had lost the ability to take action for a
few hours," North Rhine-Westphalia Governor Hannelore Kraft has
admitted.
Unprepared for
Terror?
For just a few
hours? Only in Cologne? Those who work for the federal and state
police forces are hardly surprised by the development. Largely
unnoticed by the populace at large, German policymakers have spent
the past few years reducing the size of the police forces while at
the same time inundating them with new responsibilities. "It was
bound to happen sooner or later," says a police union official
about the New Year's attacks. At some point, he continues, there is a
price to pay when police forces have to spend just as much effort
going after their budget-cutting goals as they do going after
criminals.
According to GdP,
one of two competing police unions in Germany, there were 237,198
state police officers in 2000, but today there are 10,000 fewer.
Furthermore, all German states are faced with a mountain of overtime
racked up by their officers -- some 18 million hours nationwide.
And it's not just
police personnel that have been overworked. Equipment too is well
beyond its wear limit, in many cases to the point that it has become
dangerous. A classified Federal Interior Ministry report from Jan.
19, 2015 notes that German police would be unable to adequately
protect themselves from gunfire from a Kalashnikov, the favored
weapon of terrorists worldwide -- even in their response vehicles.
The report,
completed shortly after the attack on the satirical weekly Charlie
Hebdo, notes that the "existing protective equipment (special
vehicles and protective vests)" available to state crisis
response units "does not offer any protection against firearms
of the type Kalashnikov, which were used by the attackers in Paris."
German Interior
Minister Thomas de Maizière has frequently said that it is only a
matter of time before a terror attack is committed on German soil.
Yet the federal police force his ministry is in charge of is likewise
inadequately equipped. "With their current equipment,"
police officials admitted last summer, federal police emergency
response units are "only partially deployable in tough
situations."
It is only when
something actually happens that the fear of failure becomes great
enough and action is taken. Once public attention wanes again,
though, cuts and shortcuts continue as before. And hardly anyone
cares.
Internal federal
police documents clearly show what the back-and-forth looks like. In
December 2012, the terror situation seemed relatively calm, as did
that along the German-Austrian border. The Interior Ministry reported
to German parliament that, "since 2008, the number of officers
has been reduced by 1,066, with 511 of those being prison officers."
The period of increasing the security forces in the wake of the Sept.
11, 2001 terror attacks in the US had passed and it was time to
reduce the force.
But 2008 was also
the year when Germany's federal police force was given a large new
task. They took over control of Bavaria's southern border, with some
800 officers assigned to the duty. Prior to 2008, the Bavarian state
police had controlled the border. Despite the new duties, the federal
police force was not increased by a single officer.
Just a few years
later, Federal Police Chief Dieter Romann applied for 3,000 new
positions to be added to the 2013 budget. His request was not acted
upon. In 2014, he again received nothing. Only in 2015 were new
positions added to the force: 200 of them. But they were earmarked
for the next new task assigned to the federal police force: that of
guarding the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, in Frankfurt. And
that is how the situation remained until the middle of 2015: the
Interior Ministry continued to be stingy even as the refugee numbers
had shot up and Islamists had staged the first attack in Paris.
In February, Romann
sat down again to document his needs for the 2016 budget. It reads
like a call for help. Romann wrote of the federal police force facing
a "constant overload." He warned of the "fatal
consequences" that could be linked to "questions of
political responsibility" if, once again, nothing significant
were to come of his requests. Then he demanded that the Interior
Ministry grant him an extra 1,794 extra positions for 2016 and a
total of 2,912 by 2019. Again, he failed, this time being rejected
not by the Finance Ministry, but by his own boss in the Interior
Ministry.
Interior Minister de
Maizière only wanted to push for an additional 526 positions in the
2016 budget negotiations. "For years, we have been saved to
death so that Germany could balance its budget. Minister de Maizière
was blind and deaf to the condition of the federal police force,"
says deputy union head Jörg Radek. In the end, it wasn't de
Maizière, but the Bundestag, Germany's federal parliament, that
threw its support behind Romann in the federal budget negotiations.
"I will do that as head of the Social Democrats, since the
Interior Ministry apparently isn't demanding anything," wrote
Sigmar Gabriel to a confidant shortly before the decisive round of
negotiations. Gabriel is also minister of the economy and, as head of
Merkel's junior coalition partner, vice chancellor.
The federal budget
ultimately approved the additional 3,000 positions that have been
requested for years and included them in the 2016 budget -- 1,000 per
year until 2019. But the first new officers will only join their
units in 2019, after training.
'Total Failure of
State Power'
The consequences of
the years of belt-tightening can now be observed on the Bavarian
border, where during the summer and fall, the federal police took on
a number of new refugee-related tasks that have little to do with
actual policing: distributing meals, assembling groups for bus
transfers, and organizing transportation to identification centers
and initial reception facilities.
This winter, the
situation has improved only on the surface. "What is happening
down here in Passau is insane," says a frustrated federal police
officer, saying it reminds him of a never-ending Ping-Pong game.
Austria sends refugees to Bavaria and then, in a more recent
development, Germany sends many of them back to Austria -- those with
no papers or those who don't want to remain in Germany but want to
continue onward to Sweden, for example. Not 24 hours later, the same
people are back in Passau, essentially becoming the victims of a
power struggle between Austria and Germany. "It's a total
failure of state power," says one of the police officers.
The federal police
are required to report each case indicating that the person in
question crossed the border illegally -- even if the offender crossed
the border on a state-chartered bus. Some 1,000 such reports have
thus far been filed. It is little more than bureaucratic waste, sent
along to the appropriate public prosecutors office so that the case
can then be immediately thrown out.
The trail of
overwork and fatigue leads across the entire country, from the
federal police on the border to the state prosecutors and the
officials in each German state. None of them were even remotely
prepared for the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees. State
bureaucrats, who had spent their days writing regulations pertaining
to the correct number of bicycle racks for newly built residential
housing where suddenly being asked to improvise and find shelter for
1,000 newly arrived refugees per week. At the same time, others were
tasked with guaranteeing public safety.
Eroding Trust
Not surprisingly,
they were not always successful -- and trust in the state began to
erode ever more rapidly.
The city of
Braunschweig provides a telling example. At times last year, more
than 4,000 people were housed at a former barracks at the edge of
town, many of them in the buildings but also in tents and containers
outside. As the number of newcomers to the initial reception facility
rose, so too did the number of crimes committed nearby. Much of it
was petty theft, but there were also break-ins, fights and different
forms of harassment -- and locals were unsettled. Still, there were
very few convictions. The reason was that summons to police or
judicial interrogations could not be delivered because suspects had
long-since disappeared or registered elsewhere under a different
name. "They laugh at us because nothing happens to them,"
says one detective.
In August 2015, the
Braunschweig police department became the first in the country to
establish a special unit for the express purpose of investigating
crimes committed by refugees. Police Chief Cordula Müller made the
decision to begin locking up suspects in pre-trial detention for a
week even for minor crimes. "Criminals have to understand that
Germany has laws that they must obey," she says. It worked
because the judiciary in Braunschweig went along with the plan.
Accelerated hearings have become just as important as rapid
investigations and cases are now heard immediately instead of months
later.
Since it was
founded, the special unit has dealt with around 1,300 cases. One of
the detectives recalls a judge delivering a clear message during one
of the very first hearings. "You are bringing other
asylum-seekers into disrepute," he told the defendant. It is the
kind of thing that Cordula Müller likes to hear. "We don't have
a problem with refugees. We have a problem with criminals," she
says.
In the public
debate, that kind of nuance was not always easy to find in recent
months. Initially, newcomers were welcomed with flowers and applause
at Munich's central train station. Not long later, they were pitied
as victims of right-wing rhetoric and violence. More recently,
though, the discussion has focused on limits. And since New Year's,
even the federal justice minister has spoken of "uninhibited
hordes" and a "temporary break with civilization."
Losing Control
But as fast as
opinions have changed, the state and its institutions have reacted at
a snail's pace. Its loss of control is a gradual process, and much
more difficult to observe.
That can also be
seen in the question as to how the flow of refugees should be
registered and distributed. The numbers reported by the federal
government sound precise and consistent with German thoroughness. In
truth, though, they are at best extremely approximate. Last year, up
to 10,000 newcomers each day had to be sheltered and fed. It is
understandable that officials were overwhelmed. But the lack of
accurate statistics is also the product of the fact that almost every
German state has its own solution when it comes to registering and
distributing new arrivals.
A national
registration system does exist called "Easy." It says that
a total of 1,091,894 asylum-seekers entered the country in 2015, the
Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) reported two weeks
ago. But that doesn't necessarily mean that close to 1.1 million
refugees have actually entered Germany. Experts believe the real
figure could be tens, or even hundreds of thousands, lower because it
is easy for registrations to be duplicated within the system.
"Easy" is
the German abbreviation for Primary Distribution of Asylum-Seekers
and it was designed exclusively to help spread the refugees out among
the 16 federal states according to quotas set by the German
government. New arrivals don't even have to provide a name under the
system. They only have to state their country of origin and their
familial connection to other refugees.
Many new arrivals
are simply waved into Germany by border officials without even taking
any personal data. It often takes days after they enter into the
country before they first come into contact with "Easy,"
often in a refugee camp. In some cases, asylum-seekers are given
temporary ID cards for the camps that include the name they provided.
In others, they are just given colored wristbands that give them
access to food and services.
In many places,
refugees simply disappear soon after arrival, without anyone knowing
where they've gone. The operators of some asylum-seeker camps, like
one in the state of Hesse outside of Frankfurt, report a
disappearance rate among refugees as high as 50 percent within the
first two days after arrival.
The states are
attempting to limit these fluctuations by taking steps to personally
register refugees at an earlier stage. But even that isn't helping
much because it is being conducted according to disparate standards
and using different software programs. For example, some states are
taking fingerprints, but others are not. Generally, an automated
exchange of data between the states is not currently possible, and
neither is it possible to match data up with that of the Federal
Criminal Police Office (BKA), with the national asylum-seeker
register maintained by the federal refugee office BAMF or the
Europe-wide Eurodac refugee database.
Opportunities for
Fraud
Those determined to
do so, can thus secure duplicate social benefits, such as the €143
a month in pocket money, from the government without getting caught
simply by registering in different states using either the same or
different names. During each registration, the authorities issue a
"Certificate of Registration as an Asylum-Seeker." The
simple paper is intended to serve as a kind of emergency identity
card for the refugees, a temporary solution until they are able to
get an appointment with BAMF to submit their official asylum
application. Right now, it often takes months for that to happen.
Given the chaotic
procedures that are currently in place, criminals can simply secure
official papers for multiple identities. The suspected Islamist from
an asylum-seekers' hostel in Recklinghausen, Germany, who attacked
police in Paris with an axe at the beginning of January on the first
anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attack is believed to have
registered with the authorities using at least seven different names.
An investigation by
the BKA also found that the man had applied for asylum in Switzerland
and Romania. Europe's Eurodac fingerprint database is intended to
prevent this kind of situation. "We need to review whether the
system failed," says one official.
Officials have been
aware of the registration problems for some time now, but the federal
government didn't present a draft law that would require all refugees
to be fingerprinted and photographed in a nationwide system until
December. Once they have been registered, they are to be provided
with a unified "proof of arrival" ID that is standardized
and at least halfway unforgeable. The system is supposed to go into
place in mid-February, but it will still take some time before it is
implemented at all the initial reception centers in the individual
states. Interior Minister de Maizière says he is hopeful it can be
completed by mid-2016.
Complicated
Deportations
But even more
difficult than registering new refugees is the deportation of
rejected asylum-seekers or immigrant criminal offenders. Even as the
government has announced its intention to make such deportations
easier, the situation is unlikely to change much. For years, German
officials have been complaining about 28 "problem countries"
that continually refuse to allow the return of their citizens facing
deportation from Germany despite their obligation to do so under
international law. They include the Maghreb states like Morocco,
Algeria and Tunisia, which have shown little willingness to
cooperate, especially in cases where those slated for deportation are
known criminals.
When German
authorities, for example, notify the Moroccan Embassy about a
candidate for deportation, officials say they often get answers like,
"We can't find that person in our database." Or they will
point to alleged humanitarian reasons for making the return trip
unacceptable. One German government document states that around 5,500
Algerians, Moroccans and Tunisians were "subject to deportation"
as of the end of July, but officials only managed to deport 53
nationals from those countries during the first half of 2015.
In recent months,
officials in Berlin have complained repeatedly to officials in the
Maghreb countries. In a joint letter, de Maizière and Foreign
Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, of the center-left Social
Democratic Party (SPD), recently demanded greater cooperation from
their counterparts in those countries when it comes to repatriation.
As of last week, they still hadn't received a response. The German
government has so far avoided acting on the threat of cutting
development aid to the countries if they don't cooperate, but the
warnings are there. Over the weekend, deputy chancellor and SPD boss
Sigmar Gabriel admonished the Maghreb states and threatened that
future funding may be tied to cooperation on deportations.
The consequences of
not being able to deport have become apparent in places like Cologne.
Or in the state of Saxony. An Interior Ministry report from the end
of 2015 notes that a quarter of all foreigners suspected of
committing crimes in the state were Tunisians, despite the fact that
they comprise only 4 percent of all immigrants in the state. So far,
authorities haven only succeeded in deporting very few. After months
of pressure, the Tunisian Embassy recently sent the German government
a list of 170 nationals the country would possibly be willing to take
back -- a token gesture of goodwill.
Still, it is
anything but certain that the 170 Tunisians will actually leave
Germany. For years, the German government permitted a situation in
which those who behaved the most brazenly were able to prevent their
deportation. Those who concealed their true identity, went
underground at the right moment, got a doctor's note saying they were
incapable of flying or caused such a ruckus in the deportation
aircraft that the pilot refused to take off, often succeeded in
staying in Germany.
Little Respect for
Justice
Indeed, these
individuals have felt very little of the "heavy hand of the law"
now being called for by German politicians, Chancellor Merkel first
and foremost. The same applies to young offenders facing the justice
system for the first time.
Michael Brennecke
has been a public defender in the town of Achim in Lower Saxony for
almost 30 years. Based on his experience with numerous cases, he
believes that educational measures applied by juvenile courts against
young immigrant pickpockets seldom have much impact. He says people
who come from countries where conviction for theft means getting your
hand cut off "have a totally different understanding of our
legal system -- they don't take our sentences seriously."
Brennecke often
represents delinquent refugee youth. He says there's a typical
sentencing pattern. "The case involving a first offense will be
closed, then comes a first hearing and a second hearing, both of
which end with fines. After another infraction, he is subject to a
juvenile arrest. If another crime is committed, the youth gets
sentenced to jail time, which is then converted to probation. And? To
them it's easy peasy. They march out of the courtroom and flash the
victory sign to their friends." Brennecke says he's represented
defendants who have been prosecuted 15 or 16 times without ever being
put at any serious disadvantage.
Johann Krieten, a
juvenile court judge in Hamburg has developed his own method of
ensuring an environment of respect. In his courtroom, he orders
people to take off their hats, spit out their gum, sit up straight
and keep quiet. Anyone who doesn't obey his rules is fined. Those who
don't pay are then held in contempt of court custody.
When he asks where
the defendants are from, Krieten is likewise not easily satisfied.
He'll often ask a question about a mountain in the country they live
in or a famous football player and can tell very quickly if he's
being lied to or not. Sometimes the interpreters also provide solid
clues about the defendant's true origins. "In any case, I have
never had the feeling that I was not being taken seriously,"
Krieten says.
Does Germany Need to
Get Tougher?
So does the German
justice system need to find new language in order to better reach
foreign offenders? Are tougher sentences necessary in order to put a
lid on criminality on the part of young Moroccans and Tunisians?
Not according to
Krieten. He still believes resocialization measures can be better
than prison terms, even for young migrants. He points to youth
welfare facilities that include limited detainment, as an example.
There, young men are provided with intense guidance and supervision,
far away from their old friends when possible. The judge says that
one of the major problems is that he often only encounters juvenile
delinquents very late in the process. Public prosecutors end many
investigations due to insignificance -- in many instances as a result
of a lack of staff needed to deal with the cases. This can leave
young foreign offenders feeling that the state accepts their
behavior.
Krieten argues that
the justice system must do the opposite. It needs to make its
presence felt and engage with young men who often have a problem with
self-determined women and, as a last resort, know only the kind of
violence they may have learned from their own families. "Instead
of perpetuating the illusion that you can just deport them all,"
Krieten says, "the truth is that we must solve the problems
here."
Better Enforcement
Needed, Not New Laws
Regardless whether
in Hamburg, Braunschweig or Cologne, the problems with criminal
immigrants in Germany's major cities didn't just pop up overnight on
New Year's Eve. And they cannot be solved with the kind of
prescriptions given by the government after every crisis: tightening
laws and issuing new regulations.
What is more
important is the consistent application of the laws already on the
books. This would require a stronger police presence and hiring more
staff in the government agencies in question. It would also require
more money. In short: The state has to become more active and
creative in order to put a lid on these problems and regain full
control over the country.
Elke Bartels, the
chief of police in Duisburg, a German city with a population of close
to half a million, has already tested how that might be done. During
the summer, a district in the northern part of the city dominated by
foreign clans threatened to spiral out of control. Even during the
most trivial of police deployments, officers at times found
themselves quickly surrounded by large crowds -- with the occasional
exchange of blows and threats. During one drug inspection, for
example, a female police officer and her colleague were beaten to the
ground. They had to draw their weapons and call for reinforcements in
order to escape the situation.
"We had to
prevent a lawless place from taking shape here," explains
Bartels. "The state's monopoly on the use of force can only be
enforced with a zero-tolerance strategy." She urgently requested
funding for additional personnel from the North Rhine-Westphalia
state Interior Ministry in Düsseldorf. She didn't get the hundreds
she was hoping for, but 30 new police officers did report for work on
July 17.
From that point on,
they began investigating every single violation of the law and each
breach of public order in the problem areas, from people using their
mobile phones while driving to trash thrown away illegally to
disturbing the peace. Since then, police have issued close to 4,000
fines and taken 75 people into temporary custody.
"We have
recaptured respect," Bartels says.
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