Amsterdam gets tough with scum

[Gob]

Amsterdam to create 'scum villages'


Amsterdam is to create "Scum villages" where nuisance neighbours and anti-social tenants will be exiled from the city and rehoused in caravans or containers with "minimal services" under constant police supervision.

Holland's capital already has a special hit squad of municipal officials to identify the worst offenders for a compulsory six month course in how to behave.

Social housing problem families or tenants who do not show an improvement or refuse to go to the special units face eviction and homelessness.

Eberhard van der Laan, Amsterdam's Labour mayor, has tabled the £810,000 plan to tackle 13,000 complaints of anti-social behaviour every year. He complained that long-term harassment often leads to law abiding tenants, rather than their nuisance neighbours, being driven out.

"This is the world turned upside down," the mayor said at the weekend.

The project also involves setting up a special hotline and system for victims to report their problems to the authorities.

The new punishment housing camps have been dubbed "scum villages" because the plan echoes a proposal from Geert Wilders, the leader of a populist Dutch Right-wing party, for special units to deal with persistent troublemakers.

"Repeat offenders should be forcibly removed from their neighbourhood and sent to a village for scum," he suggested last year. "Put all the trash together."

Whilst denying that the new projects would be punishment camps for "scum", a spokesman for the city mayor stressed that the special residential units would aim to enforce good behaviour.

"The aim is not to reward people who behave badly with a new five-room home with a south-facing garden. This is supposed to be a deterrent," he said.

The tough approach taken by Mr van der Laan appears to jar with Amsterdam's famous tolerance for prostitution and soft drugs but reflects hardening attitudes to routine anti-social behaviour that falls short of criminality.

There are already several small-scale trial projects in the Netherlands, including in Amsterdam, where 10 shipping container homes have been set aside for persistent offenders, living under 24-hour supervision from social workers and police.

Under the new policy, from January next year, victims will no longer have to move to escape their tormentors, who will be moved to the new units.

A team of district "harassment directors" have already been appointed to spot signals of problems and to gather reports of nuisance tenants.

The Dutch Parool newspaper observed that the policy was not a new one. In the 19th century, troublemakers were moved to special villages in Drenthe and Overijssel outside Amsterdam. The villages were rarely successful, becoming sink estates for the lawless.

"We have learned from the past," said the mayor's spokesman. "A neighbourhood can deal with one problem family but if there are more the situation escalates."

[Sean]

My only problem with this is that kids will suffer because their parents are arseholes.

[Andrew D]

What kinds of "routine anti-social behaviour that falls short of criminality" would result in one's being sent to a "scum village"?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Walking around in the nude

[rubato]

It would be an interesting experiment. Can't do it in practice, of course.

Everyone 'rates' their neighbors say 2x a year based on their being good neighbors; keep up their place, not too loud, considerate, dogs don't bark excessively or shit on the sidewalk, children are well-behaved &c. If you get high composite scores you can stay put or move to a 'better' neighborhood. Too many low scores in a row and you're evicted into a lower-scoring neighborhood. If you're scores still stink you get moved down again &c.

Would the outcome be conformity in an objectionable sense (one thinks the south would enforce religious or cultural bigotries)? Or, by providing an incentive for better social behavior and a penalty for worse would it be better 'citizenship' overall? Would people learn, by being moved down to live with people with just as poor social skills as themselves, how to behave better and why people might not like it when their dogs shit on the sidewalk and their children skateboard through the neighbors flower beds? In other words by seeing what its like 'when everyone does it' would they see their behavior in a different light?

Be fun to try it. (now go back an look at the second sentence again)


yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Walking around in the nude

Playing Leonard Cohen records. (didn't he first come out on piano rolls?)

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

(one thinks the south would enforce religious or cultural bigotries)

Oh, "one" thinks that does he?

This "one" fella sounds like he's got his head up his ass just about as far as somebody around here I know....

[oldr_n_wsr]

I am guessing this pertains only to those people in public housing as if I were a property owner, there would be a "dustup" if they wanted to ship me off to some container park. And that being the case, if you are being housed by the gov, you go where the gov tells you. Part of the deal for living off the public dole.

I volunteer one day a week (wish I could do more) to help people clean out and fix up their houses in Sandy affected neighborhoods. I have made it clear that I will not fix up landlord houses, only "owner occupied" houses. People who live and own in the neighborhoods have a vested interest in that neighborhood. Landlords and their renters (many of which are section 8, to use a Ca term) do not normally have a vested interest in the neighborhood. The place I have been volunteering is Mastic Beach, people can look up the income level and other such data to see what I mean.

[Andrew D]

I am guessing this pertains only to those people in public housing as if I were a property owner, there would be a "dustup" if they wanted to ship me off to some container park.

It appears not to apply to property owners:

Social housing problem families or tenants who do not show an improvement or refuse to go to the special units face eviction and homelessness.

Whether it applies only to those in public housing is not clear from the article. "Social housing problem families" appears to apply only to people in public housing. But "or tenants" is ambiguous. Does it mean "Social housing ... tenants"? Or does the quoted language mean "Social housing problem families or any tenants, whether in social housing or not"?

[Gob]

I should imagine it only applies to people housed at the state's expense.

[rubato]

Convicts and conscripts?

[MajGenl.Meade]

and crisp apple strudels

[oldr_n_wsr]

and perogies. topped with fried onions.

[Lord Jim]

and crisp apple strudels

and snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes...

And let's not forget the cream colored ponies...

[Guinevere]

Door bells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles . . .

[TPFKA@W]

Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings ...

[Lord Jim]

Well, these are a few of my favorite things...

[oldr_n_wsr]

When the dog bites
When the bee stings

[Lord Jim]

When the dog bites
When the bee stings

Well, when those sorts of things happen, I generally find myself feeling sad...

But when that happens, I try to remember some of my favorite things...

[oldr_n_wsr]

And then, do you not feel sooooooo baaaaad.