BERLIN POLICE are searching for a controversial judge, missing since Monday, who pioneered a campaign against juvenile crime in the German capital’s most deprived neighbourhood.
Judge Kirsten Heisig vanished after visiting friends outside Berlin on Monday night. After she was reported missing on Tuesday, police found her car the following day parked in woods on the city’s outskirts.
Police said they found her mobile phone and house keys inside the car, but turned up no signs of a violent struggle. Two searches in the woods with sniffer dogs failed to reveal any trace of the 48-year-old or evidence of a kidnapping.
A separated mother of two daughters, Ms Heisig has risen to national prominence in Germany with her zero-tolerance approach to juvenile crime.
She pioneered a programme that saw juveniles brought before her court within a month of committing misdemeanours.
City authorities have said the “Neukölln model” of swift punishment for juvenile offenders, named after the Berlin district where she presides, has proven highly effective. The model was introduced across the city last month.
“We’re not going to get anywhere with kid gloves,” said Ms Heisig in a recent interview.
“We need to intervene early so that, when rules are broken, there is consequential action and a learning effect.”
With her outspoken views and frequent media appearances, Ms Heisig became a controversial figure in Berlin multicultural circles as well as with the city’s immigrant communities.
Representatives of Berlin’s Turkish community have complained that Ms Heisig placed too great an emphasis in interviews on the cultural background of the people before her in court.
Police declined to comment yesterday on Berlin media speculation that Ms Heisig might have fallen victim to someone she sentenced in her court.
Shortly before her disappearance, Ms Heisig handed in the manuscript of her first book. Titled The End of Tolerance, the book expounds her theory that swift punishment of juvenile crime can stop the spiral of violence and delinquency and the lapse into more serious crime.
