A Good Neighbour Policy for Criminals

The junkies who live in my apartment block have finally been evicted.  This is good news for their immediate neighbours who have had to tolerate endless screaming, fights, property damage and late night police visits.  Its not such good news for the junkies of course who now have to find somewhere else to scream, fight, damage stuff and entertain the police but I suppose there are losers in every transaction.  Another interesting fact is that the drug dealer who lives in a nearby flat isn't being evicted, presumably because she's quiet and doesn't bother the neighbours.

If anyone ever asks why good manners are important the above paragraph is a perfect example.  The junkies were wrecks; pathetic, shattered human beings who were probably incapable of harming anyone seriously except themselves.  But they got evicted because they irritated the neighbours.  The person selling the stuff that ruined them is still living here because she didn't irritate the neighbours.

I was reading the other day about a Sicilian mafia boss.  Even by the standards of his profession he seems to have been a particularly appalling character.  Having murdered his way to the head of his family he maintained that position and became the boss of bosses by even nastier methods.  He also cheerfully killed any government employees who even looked like they might take law and order seriously and wasn't too concerned about how many innocent (ie not government employees) were killed in the process.  This lack of discrimination led to civilian deaths, serious property damage and a climate of fear.  Remember we're talking about Palermo here, it takes a lot to cut through the normal climate of fear to produce a special one.  The result was that the population of Italy (and even more surprisingly a goodly proportion of the population of Sicily) started demanding that the government do something about this man.  This man is now serving six billion years to life in an Italian maximum security prison.  It is fair to say that the other mafia bosses who adhered a little more closely to the good neighbour policy heaved a sigh of relief and Sicily has settled down happily under the thumb of more traditional mafia overlords.

As an interesting aside when the carabinieri went to arrest this man who had been "on the run" and "in hiding" for over twenty years all they did was knock on his front door.  Everybody knew where he was and if he had behaved just a little more decently towards his neighbours he would probably still be there.

All of which leads me to the conclusion that people prefer good neighbours to law abiding citizens.  So if you're a young criminal out there, here's some free advice.  Be quiet, keep decent hours, dress soberly and be polite but friendly to your neighbours when you meet them.  Do this and they probably won't care if your apartment is stacked floor to ceiling with eviscerated corpses.  Although in that case it might be adviseable to invest in some air freshener as well.