Police Perception of Migration and Migrants in Greece

The beginning of the 1990s saw a sharp rise in the number of immigrants entering Greece from a variety of contexts. Drawing on notions of ethnicity and immigration, the phenomenon of migration into Greece became a topic of heated debate, and was increasingly identified with a range of “social problems” such as unemployment, national (in)security and, of course, crime. Events such as 9/11 in the US, 7/7 in Britain, and the 2005 riots in the suburbs of Paris and other French cities, although occurring in other contexts, had a global resonance and heightened these debates. The relationship between migrants and crime in particular has been an important issue in the social and political agenda of Greece with some intermissions. “Organised crime” in the country, for example, had been considered to be unknown before the beginning of the 1990s; nowadays the dominant view among social and political commentators, as well as Greek citizens in general, is that it has evolved in parallel with increasing levels of migration. Simultaneously, according to official figures, migrant groups make a significant contribution to official crime rates across a range of offences.