RSS FeedHow the City of Barcelona Deals With Nuisance Crimes
Edit: Here is the official info page on Barcelona’s website.
Source: Barcelona Metropolitan
Almost 1 year ago, Barcelona, Spain adopted something called Ordenanza de la Convivencia, or “Ordinance for Living Together”.
In a nutshell, the Ordinance sets up a number of infractions and their corresponding fines, distinguishing in detail between ‘light’, ‘serious’ and ‘very serious’ violations, often of the same offence. Offences can include begging aggressively, putting up posters or leaflets, offering or participating in street gambling, unsuitable play in public spaces, offering or requesting sexual services, noise pollution, urinating in the street, the improper use of public space, drinking in public, vandalism, hawking, attacks on a person’s dignity (e.g. against ethnic minorities or disabled people) and offering or using unauthorised services.
Even if the infraction is light, the fine is not: up to €750 can be charged for buying beer or urinating on the street, and up to €1,500 if the latter is done against a monument, when it becomes a serious violation. Putting stickers on street signs or practising paid-for sexual intercourse in public are considered very serious infractions warranting fines of up to €3,000.
“We want to maintain our model of integrated, open and dense urbanism,” Councillor Asunción Escarp, one of the driving forces behind the Ordinance, told Metropolitan. “Public space is for everybody, and we have to delineate very clearly where the rights of one person end and those of another begin.”
This blogger has a copy of the English version of the pamphlet which we’ll post soon.
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Comments
First off, how are all the vagrants and panhandlers in our neighborhood going to pay those fines???
Second, did someone forget we live in DC? Have you seen the makeup of the DC Council, lately? While the Europeans are very liberal, they’re also sensible. DC government lacks the latter and would rather not interfere with the bums’ right to urinate then pass such laws.
I suppose if the vagrant in question saves that $3 he was going to spend on MD 20/20, after about three months, he’d have enough to pay the fine. AND he’d be cold sober. It’s win-win!
What happened with the self-contained/self-cleaning bathrooms they were testing in Huntington station and elsewhere? I heard they weren’t compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, or maybe 9-11 made them too attractive a target for terrorists.
But I guess it’s easier to pass unenforceable laws.
I think it’s a wrong assumption that vagrants and panhandlers have no money – drugs aren’t cheap and panhandling is pretty lucrative. I also think it’s wrong to assume that college kids and “upstanding adults” won’t decide to urinate on your building after they’ve had a few drinks in our downtown bars.
I’ve read a blog post where a man has his young daughter urinate in someone’s alley because “she really had to go.”
And I’ve also read testimony from a tourist who got caught urinating on a Barcelona street only to be escorted to an ATM so he could pay his fine.
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God bless the practical sensibilities of the Europeans. I have been following these ordinances since they were proposed (I love Barcelona), and am glad to hear that they are working well.
In the late 90s, Guilliano in NYC began to enforce laws against small crimes (fare cheating, spitting, graffiti), and the city, tho sometimes with an “under siege” aura, was cleaned up, people felt safer, and crime levels dropped.
Arrest or fine the urinators, the noisemakers, the graffiti artists and other petty nuisances, and everyone’s attitude changes. For a good read, pick up Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point.” Great, fast read that sums up why these ordinances work.