Etudes par pays volume 2, PDF, 346 p., 1,4 Mo - Femise

11873_2002 Study D2: Poverty, Informal Sector, Health and Labour
4.2. Policy and Legislation
In support of the government efforts, the Minister of Public Order claims
that the policy adopted in recent years against crime was effective and has
decreased considerably criminal activity. He admits, nevertheless, the rising
uneasiness of citizens regarding crime. Summarizing the measures taken
against crime, the Vice-chief of the police referred particularly to the steps
made for the modernization of police methods and technology;
improvement in the organization of the police and the training and retraining
of the police force; the disengagement of police from non-policing services;
the learning from the good practices applied in other EU countries; the
putting into effect already signed bilateral agreements with neighbouring
countries and other Central and Eastern European countries for deterring
trafficking of people, drugs and guns and he pointed out the active
involvement of citizens in fighting crime. Recent legislation (L. 2928/2001)
on the ‘’Protection of Citizens from Criminal Acts committed by Criminal
Organizations’’ is a law against organized crime and terrorism, providing
new court practices and much stiffer penalties than the previous legislation.
The Vice-chief of the police also drew the attention to the priority given in
enhancing the pedestrian and mounted police patrols as a deterrent to
robberies, theft and other crimes. For small crime prevention, the
‘’neighbourhood policeman’’ in cooperation with people and local bodies
intervenes for solving problems of security and reassuring the feeling of
safety to the citizens. This new police service was put in force on a pilot
basis on 17 March this year in 35 police precincts in Attica and 2 in
Thessaloniki, involving 354 policemen in an equal number of
neighbourhoods. Before starting, these policemen attended special seminars
on the philosophy of this institution and their specific duties. So far, the
results of this experiment are judged encouraging by the competent ministry
and they plan to expand the project to the rest of the country (Table A3).
A new institution, announced by the Minister of Public Order, is the
establishment of Local Councils of Criminal Prevention, which is a policy,
decided three years ago, but had not the expected appeal to the
municipalities. Through the Councils, the government offers its support for
the drafting of local preventive programmes. As the minister explained, the
idea is not that the Councils ‘’take the law in their own hands, neither to
create islands of informers’’. Their main role is to register and study the
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