I think that if you get arrested in another country it can have a serious damping effect on your ability to revisit that country in the future.

Border Guards have access to your entire criminal history. Consider that when you recognize that doing Urban Exploration can potentially lead to charges like criminal trespass, vandalism, breaking & entering...

Basically, I'd think twice about doing this in a country you're not a citizen of.

Posted by Darendor Necropost on a thread that's a year old. Makes no sense. What is orange?

Makes no sense? Please!

Who is this person?

Posted by Doug Makes no sense? Please! Who is this person?

I don't remember actually posting that. :\

Posted by Darendor I think that if you get arrested in another country it can have a serious damping effect on your ability to revisit that country in the future. Border Guards have access to your entire criminal history. Consider that when you recognize that doing Urban Exploration can potentially lead to charges like criminal trespass, vandalism, breaking & entering... Basically, I'd think twice about doing this in a country you're not a citizen of.

Wait, I'm not sure this makes sense. Let's say you're a Canadian travelling to the US, and your Canadian record is clean but you have a charge for trespassing in, say, Germany. Are they really going to check your record against every country in the world? That sounds bureaucratically impossible.

Posted by Steed Wait, I'm not sure this makes sense. Let's say you're a Canadian travelling to the US, and your Canadian record is clean but you have a charge for trespassing in, say, Germany. Are they really going to check your record against every country in the world? That sounds bureaucratically impossible.

It's highly unlikely that you would receive a trespass charge in any European country, as for the majority it's either not a criminal offence or they won't take anything to court due to costs/no public interest to prosecute. Germany does have some peculiar laws though, so it may be an exception. I have never personally heard of anyone being charged in Germany however.

Not to say it wouldn't happen though, as there are exceptions of course. Just recently a group of trespassing ghost hunters were arrested and may be charged for accessing an old asylum here in the UK, however it turned out not to be as simple as 'regular' trespass because one of them had a crowbar on them and had pried open the fence.

Basically, I was trying to say that it's a lot riskier to engage in urban exploration (which in law enforcement as we all should be aware of translates to "trespass") when not in your home country.

But hell, what do I know.

Since there is an entire show still going strong about how much it sucks to be locked up in another country, I would wholeheartedly agree with you that it's just automatically riskier to explore in other countries. Even though our courts seem messed up sometimes, pretty much everywhere else has a really f***ed up justice system when compared to the U.S. and possibly Canada (I know literally nothing about the Canadian justice system), and then there are the jails/prisons...

Posted by Darendor Basically, I was trying to say that it's a lot riskier to engage in urban exploration (which in law enforcement as we all should be aware of translates to "trespass") when not in your home country. But hell, what do I know.

I'm from Canada and live in Korea. Exploring in my hometown is dangerous, but I've never had a thing to worry about overseas. Probably if you're Canadian or American, you're much safer off exploring abroad.

The other thing to do before you travel is definitely take the time to familiarise yourself with whatever laws apply in the country you are going to be in, so you can avoid having people try and mislead you/pull a fast one on some 'silly foreigner'

Posted by Steed I'm from Canada and live in Korea. Exploring in my hometown is dangerous, but I've never had a thing to worry about overseas. Probably if you're Canadian or American, you're much safer off exploring abroad.

It's easy to say that if you've never run afoul of the law in Korea.

Somebody mentioned the former Soviet Union.

Any place in the Russian Federation: if you get injured and need medical attention, you are quite literally, taking your life into your hands going to a hospital. There's no guarantee that the hospital will have trained staff, clean instruments or even reliable electricity.

Russia also has "exclusion zones" where non-Russians are prohibited from travelling to without a pass from the MVD. Sometimes they're easy to spot and sometimes not. If you get caught in an exclusion zone without a pass, look forward to getting robbed by the police and dumped in jail.

Ukraine is sort of a special case. The Chernobyl exclusion zone is kind of touch and go. Stay the heck out of Southeastern Ukraine.

Posted by Darendor It's easy to say that if you've never run afoul of the law in Korea.

I get caught by the cops all the time, for exploring and for traffic offences. I'm white, so they don't care much about dealing with me. There's even a video online from two days ago where you can hear me leading a room full of punks shouting "ACAB!" at the cops trying to shut our show down (they didn't).

When I go back to Canada I have to be a lot more careful because the cops there are so much more vigilant. They won't even let you drink in public!