"I've been here a week and I still haven't seen a cop," commented a friend, somewhat in awe, when he was visiting Berlin from Australia. After a week in town, this friend was so struck by the paucity of police that he resolved to find at least one officer laying down the law, but I think he only found a parking inspector.

Given that tens of thousands of riot police take over Berlin on May Day when the Kreuzberg district can become a war zone, or baton-wielding officers regularly force squatters from their homes, it seems ironic that, on the ground, amid the day-to-day rhythms of the metropolis, Berliners practice a strange sort of self-governance.

Breaking the law in an orderly fashion

People freely drink alcohol on the streets and in the subway, successfully carry on "illegal" parties in public parks, get nude in said parks, smoke dope wherever they like, sell food and drink without a license, or open unauthorized bars in their apartments, seemingly with the tacit acceptance of the law.

After first coming to Berlin, I was a little dismayed by all this liberty. Where are all those infamous German rules and regulations, I wondered? If there's so few police, why do the Berlin streets feel so safe?

Where I come from, that last bastion of freedom called Australia, signs are placed on every corner telling people what they can't do. No dogs. No bikes. No ball games. No drinking alcohol. No swearing (a new law passed just last month). No. No. No. Meanwhile, the ubiquitous police don't just find trouble - they look for it. Could that be why Australian city streets feel less safe than Berlin's?

In Berlin, it's as if the people can be trusted. Women walk alone late at night. There's little vandalism. Even the conspicuous drug dealing in my local park is carried on in an orderly fashion, and attracts only occasional police intervention.

There are of course exceptions: Berlin has long been a center for organized crime, while recently there have been a couple of brutal assaults in subway stations, causing the tabloid press to declare that inadequate policing has turned Berlin into New York circa 1982. But such attacks are isolated. Most people you talk to have never had a problem on the underground. And Berlin police numbers, while being cut, are still the largest per capita in Germany.

The fact that the crime rate for 2010 is the lowest on record might boost my argument. But the true evidence, for me, is anecdotal. Everyone says the same thing.

They may be there, even if you don't see them

Berlin doesn't forget the Stasi

"On my first visit just over a year ago, I clearly remember walking around Mitte feeling really free," wrote Mark Espiner in the daily Tagesspiegel in 2010. "I tried to work out why it was that I felt physically different here from in London and it suddenly hit me: I wasn't being stared at by CCTV cameras."

He made a good point. England has some 4.2 million surveillance cameras - equating to one for every 14 people - and most can be found in London. In Berlin, by comparison, such cameras barely exist, and not only because the government can't afford them.

Berliners are especially fearful of surveillance - and police in general - after living with the East German secret police, the Stasi, for years. Moreover, Germany's virulent data privacy movement, which aims to protect all sorts of public freedoms, is headquartered in Berlin, and the city is crawling with vigilante hackers and data anarchists, young people with a strong sense of history who want to shield the city from prying eyes.

So history, it seems, has inspired Berliners to consciously maintain their freedom, but also to regulate themselves rather than have the police do it for them. It might sound utopian, but it seems to work.

A warning and a laugh

It's why, in my experience (and some have much different stories), Berlin cops just don't feel the need to hassle people. It's like the time I was driving a van and sideswiped a fire engine, causing some small damage. The fire brigade was a little upset, but the police just smoked a couple of cigarettes, listened to my apologies for not carrying any real identification or insurance papers, and said, "You've been very bad!" as they laughed and drove off.

Berlin has a long history of being a very loose town. With the city determined to throw off the yoke of Prussian militarism between the World Wars, transgressive behavior became a badge of honor in Weimar Berlin, and a tolerant police oversaw the operation of some 170 illegal gay and transvestite bars and brothels. Today, Berlin is proud of its "free" zones where anything is possible, and admissible, as long as no one gets hurt.

When I was returning to Berlin from Zurich the other night, a large, animated group boarded the train carrying bottles of beer. I felt immediately at home. Unlike on Swiss trains, where there was a lot of uniformed security, behavior wasn't being tempered; people didn't feel like they were under control. It was nice.

I've been back in Berlin a few days now; I still haven't seen a cop.

Author: Stuart Braun

Editor: Kate Bowen