阿姆斯特丹將建“人渣村”

【導(dǎo)讀】荷蘭首都阿姆斯特丹將在該市郊外建立一個“人渣村”，那些愛滋事的鄰居或者有反社會行為的租戶都將集中在活動房或集裝箱內(nèi)居住6個月，期間只能享受最低限度的生活服務(wù)，并24小時受警察和社工監(jiān)控。在此期間如果行為未有改善或者拒絕前往集中居住區(qū)的公租房住戶將面臨住房被收回、無家可歸的境況。該項目將于明年1月起正式啟動。據(jù)悉，該市每年接到的反社會行為投訴達1.3萬起，阿姆斯特丹市長已撥出130萬美元來應(yīng)對該問題。同時，該市還將開通一條熱線電話專門接受此類問題的投訴舉報。
Amsterdam is to create "Scum villages" where nuisance neighbors and anti-social tenants will be exiled from the city and rehoused in caravans or containers with "minimal services" under constant police supervision. Amsterdam is to create "Scum villages" where nuisance neighbors and anti-social tenants will be exiled from the city and rehoused in caravans or containers with "minimal services" under constant police supervision.

The capital of Netherlands 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 behavior every year. He complained that long-term harassment often leads to law abiding tenants, rather than their nuisance neighbors, 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 neighborhood 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 behavior. "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 behavior 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 neighborhood can deal with one problem family but if there are more the situation escalates."