Meeting under the Minister of Citizen Protection, Yannis Economouwas held on Monday at the Ministry, with the aim of dealing with violence and delinquency of minors.

The violence and delinquency of minors is not a purely police phenomenon, but more broadly social. It employs many countries in Europe and shows an increasing trend, which is due to many social factors.

The Greek Police, as part of its action, also prevents exterminates the vast majority of these cases, which indeed present an objective difficulty due to the nature and age of the victims.

Already, according to the data, the Greek Police made 1,353 arrests of minors, for 1,201 cases, in September to deal with delinquency in order to ensure the safety of the youth.

There are, however, incidents that concern public opinion and create a sense of insecurity in minors and families and in the context of dealing with this situation and strengthening a sense of security the following agreed axes are moving:

  • recording, with up-to-date data, of the points where juvenile violence manifests itself more strongly.
  • suggestion for more intense and more visible policing – in the context of the restructuring and reorientation of the forces of the Hellenic Armed Forces – which could work preventively and deterrently.
  • Intensification of contacts, starting from the beginning of November, with regional Police Departments, with a clear focus and targeting in Attica, with the aim of capturing the problem in a real dimension, with parallel information to the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, in the presence of expert scientists.

The Minister of Citizen Protection, Yiannis Oikonomou, stated:

“Juvenile delinquency is one of the most critical and difficult delinquent issues we have to deal with, precisely because it involves children. With more intense and more systematic policing we try to initially limit the scope of the attacks. We must intensify our presence and of course continue, with increasing rates of success, in terms of detection. Our presence should be systematic everywhere, communication in every neighborhood and municipality, with schools, parents and guardians’ associations, families, the local community should be systematic. We are starting such an effort. The Greek Government will deal comprehensively with this issue, which has a broad social dimension.

It is not only a Greek phenomenon, but a pan-European one. We must promptly, with all the tools the organized State has, in all the places where young people move and I would say holistically – not only police, but social, educational, scientific, with psychologists – to look as deeply as possible, at the root of, this phenomenon and to deal with it. In this direction all the three axes we set are moving, so that violence and delinquency of minors can be dealt with in all its dimensions.”