Police declare campaign aiming to curb roadside begging

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
TA traffic_311 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
TA traffic_311
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
The Israel Police announced new measures on Monday against beggars who stand at intersections asking drivers for change, describing them as a “disturbance” for motorists.
Police are especially concerned about the use of minors by adults to beg or sell cheap goods in the North and in Jerusalem.
“This phenomenon endangers the minors and the drivers,” police said.
Some 3,100 incidents of this type were recorded by police around the country since the beginning of 2010.
Cmdr. Nissim Mor, head of the police’s Operations Branch, has ordered all police districts to focus patrols and detectives on mapping out the areas in which begging is most common and “minimizing the phenomenon, as well as dealing with adults who use children to beg and sell goods against the law.”
Municipal police officers and Traffic Police will also take part in the initiative.
Palestinian minors caught begging will be returned to the West Bank via IDF checkpoints, police added. Israeli minors will be registered with police youth officers as needy children, a process that will involve social welfare services.
Adults caught using children for profit will receive a traffic ticket for disrupting traffic and a fine for illegal peddling, and will face a seizure of all their goods.