Juvenile delinquency has increased in recent years in Greece compared to the past. This is the belief of the vast majority of public opinion, as recorded in a company survey Pro ratapresented at the event on “Youth Violence & Delinquency: From Repression to Prevention”, organized by the Institute for Social Democracy – InSocial, in collaboration with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) of Athens.

The survey was conducted with a nationwide sample of 1000 people from 11/19 to 6/11/24.

Specifically, 49.5% of respondents believe that incidents of violence between minors have increased compared to the past, 37.5% that they are more frequent and we learn about them more easily now, while 14% that they are not more frequent but we learn them more easily now because of their wider coverage.

The belief of the great majority of citizens is that not only has the juvenile delinquency in recent years, but now new forms of hard violence have made their appearance. 78.5% of survey participants believe that participation in gangs and illegal activity groups has increased and 76.5% believe that Digital delinquent behavior has increased. But what is the cause of this upsurge? The results of the prorata research lead us in two directions: Firstly, in the family environment and secondly, in the communication of young people through social media and in the abuse of video games with violent content.

How can the phenomenon be treated? What should be done on a political and social level? The large majority (63%) considers that the weight should be given to prevention of the phenomenon with the implementation of prevention and education programs, while it should not go unnoticed as we are referring to minors, that 35% request combating the phenomenon with tightening of laws and penalties.

“The issue of violence against minors has been of political and social concern to us in the past,” he said at the relevant event-presentation, the Nikos ChristodoulakisHead of InSocial, op. Professor O.P.A., pr. Minister. “These are difficult to interpret phenomena for which a primary investigation is needed in order to highlight causes and factors that may appear for the first time. Problems of this type need combined approaches of both descriptive nature and high-level scientific analyses.

From the side of Angelos SeriatosScientific Director of Prorata, noted during the presentation of the research: “Three thematic axes were investigated. The first, how the Greek society perceives the most basic dimensions of the phenomenon, the second, which locates, again as perception, its roots, the third, how it accepts existing applied policies to deal with it. Finally, it is examined how the media, as a basic screen for filtering perceptions, present the phenomenon. In other words, it is also interesting to compare the following relationship: reception of the phenomenon by society and how the mass media present this phenomenon”.

OR Christina ZarafonitouProfessor of Criminology, Dept. in Sociology, Director of the “Criminology” Program and the Urban Criminology Laboratory (EAStE) of Panteion University, wondered if there are finally answers to violence: “In order to answer, we make the following assumptions: crime is an oscilloscope of social conflicts and the fact that violence does not concern only minors. Minors are no exception. They are equally more sensitive to the shocks and conflicts of our society. If we want to structure a rational anti-crime policy it should be based on scientific research, there should be the necessary political will and a social awareness in the right direction. The goal of prevention is not the control of the citizen by his fellow citizen but the consolidation of trust between them and towards the institutions”.

OR Angeliki GaziAn. Professor of Media and Technology Psychology – Department of Media & Culture Communication, Panteion University. Visiting Professor at the Dept. of Psychology, EKPA, made a special reference to the effect of the mass media on the phenomenon of juvenile delinquency

“The mass media influence people’s representations and attitudes. A first assumption is that, when the order of society is shaken by crimes, wars, economic hardship or some moral crisis, a large part of the responsibility is assigned to the media. A second assumption is that the mass media do not continuously and spatially influence society to the same extent. A third assumption is that when we try to analyze the media we cannot think in terms of the behavioral, stimulus-response theory. The same stimulus does not cause the same reaction in everyone. A fourth assumption is that the media amplifies moral panic. A message from the mass media penetrates the individual through the groups to which he belongs, especially children and teenagers. The media “constructs” so to speak the reality. The mass media increase imitation processes and decisively influence the internalization processes.

Finally o Stelios Stylianidesom. Professor of Social Psychiatry, Psychoanalyst, Founder & Honorary President of EPAPSY, pointed out that nowadays, the quality of violence is much more savage. “We are in a society that promotes a narcissistic/individualistic culture. Today we have a culture of emptiness with an absence of meaning through chaotic Social Media. We experience lawlessness, impunity and unreliability of the political system, while the institutions are supposed to be working. We cannot manage aggression by feeling an external or internal threat. We find it difficult to understand the sexuality of teenagers, misinterpreted behaviors such as those of rugby players and idealized by young people’s ways of metamorphosing violence. Today, there is a problem in understanding the difficulties of parenting with shrinking paternal function, overprotectiveness, and finally an underlying psychiatric pathology emerges. The potential effects of these are involvement with the law and early stigmatization, exposure to violence, victimization, drug and alcohol use, separation from family and running away from home, difficulties in adapting and integrating into school, and internet addiction. .