What is the reason that has led to an increase in juvenile delinquency? Psychologists Alexandra Kappatou and the president of the Attica Police Association, George Kalliakmanis, explain to skai.gr.
By Makis Synodinos
Concern but also intense concern is caused by rise in crime among minors as the bloody clashes recorded in the police report are almost a daily occurrence.
Psychologists, social workers and police officers who are called daily to bloody incidents starring children, talk about a new harsh reality in which child innocence is dispelled as a myth.
The skai.gr opens the “juvenile delinquency” file looking for reasons those that lead children to delinquency and then to crime that in the last year has taken on explosive proportions.
Is the family environment responsible? The prolonged quarantine they experienced and resulted in their confinement and isolation? Their often obsessive involvement with the internet?
We addressed Mrs. Alexandra Kappatou psychologist – child psychologist which characterized the phenomenon as “multifactorial”, which has to do with social causes, with the conditions that have been formed, with the relationship of children with the family and partly has to do with the state of confinement.
“We have to be very careful in reading it first and then in managing it. Adolescent violence has always been a phenomenon. Unfortunately, we see that in recent years it has taken on an explosive dimension. “After the pandemic and during the period of confinement, however, we see a lot of incidents every day.”
According to Ms. Kappatou, we once talked about groups in neighborhoods, but today we can also talk about gangs.
“Children today I would literally say are naked, they feel alone, they feel that they do not belong somewhere”while as it typically says: “The lack of prospects, values, and a system that seems to create various difficulties for children as it does not motivate them to set goals. “Children see a dead end, constant problems, an unemployment that they may experience at home with their parents.”
As for the parents, he advises them to ensure a good contact with their children, a proper communication. Even if they have difficulty never interrupting the channel of communication with them. Be able to identify the needs of their teens in a timely manner when they see problems with their children rush to a specialist for help.
Police officers who deal with juvenile delinquency on a daily basis speak of a rapid increase in juvenile delinquency.
As he says George KalliakmanisPresident of the Association of Police Officers of Southeastern Attica, “There is a rapid increase in the ages 12-17. They are in the process of taking out weapons, knives, iron fists and other objects not only to threaten but also to turn them against minors. “.
The violence starts from inside the house but also from the standards, says the experienced ELAS police officer, while as he says, the police officers who are called in cases of minors treat them with subtlety as they are children.
“Everyone as a society, the social actors, should see where this escalation of violence comes from and try to deal with it effectively because only the police can not. “When the police arrive it is too late.”
As for whether police officers have been frightened, endangered or injured by juvenile gangs, Mr. Kalliakmanis describes an incident that occurred in Voula where minors came down from an apartment with poles and injured DIAS police officers.
“There is no person who is not afraid especially when dealing with a large group. “The great fear of the police in such cases is not to make a mistake and hit a minor.”
In closing he explains two more reasons that play a role in the rapid increase in crime and these are the internet with cyberbullying and the music that as he characteristically says: “The music that advertises delinquency” meaning the trap music that has entered the homes of minors in recent months. The music that shows that in order to be famous, one must have a particularly delinquent behavior with drugs, with weapons, and treat the woman as an object. “This is a bad example that may exacerbate some of the problems in some children’s homes.”
According to police data in 2021, the ELAS handled more than 1,100 cases of minors most of which involved criminal acts of all kinds, while the juvenile perpetrators exceeded 1,500, most of whom were members of organized gangs.
A senior ELAS official pointed out that the phenomenon of juvenile gangs is not recent, however it creates intense concern in the ranks of the Greek police as organized groups of juveniles grow like mushrooms.
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