Greek police consider hiring immigrants

From GR Reporter :

27 Mar 2009

Elef[ther]os Tipos newspaper claims that the Greek police are seriously considering the possibility to start hiring immigrants. By doing this they are hoping to lower the crimes, committed by foreigners or targeted against foreigners. The goal is to create a special team, which will be part of different criminal circles, in order to try and gather information, which for now is unreachable for the Greek policemen. Similar practice exists in the UK, USA, and Austria and it provides excellent results. This advice was given by an expert from Scotland Yard, who is advising the Greek police in their anti terrorism fight. The Diplomatic advisor of the Greek Prime Minister Kostas Bitzios, supported and commented on the idea.

Hiring foreigners to work for the Greek police was a taboo for many years. Ever since 2005, the subject started making its way into discussions here and there. But the data given by the former London police director and now current advisor for the Greek police Sir Ian Blare is eloquent: “During 2001-2002, immigrant policemen in London were a little bit over 5%. During 2007-2008, this percentage increased to 21%. Meanwhile racist crimes in London decreased to 14%. Right now 1200 immigrants work in Scotland Yard. The goal is their number to increase 5 times until 2010.”

“At least one foreign policeman in every police station” is the slogan raised by the Vienna police. The US has the longest history on this topic – 46 000 policemen and women are born outside of the US. This is 6% out of the whole American police. 1/3rd of the policemen in New York are foreigners. Though, this probably will not happen soon in the Greek police. Experts are certain that hiring Afghans and Pakistani would solve many problems. They can be hired only if they have Greek citizenship, because otherwise this would go against the constitution of the country. For now, there are not Afghans and Pakistani with Greek citizenship.

Meanwhile, criminality in the Greek capital is increasing as a geometrical progression. Only in March, 8 murders have happened in Athens. For comparison – for the same period, 10 murders have happened in London, when you keep in mind that the city has 7.7 million citizens—in other words, it is two times bigger than Athens. For the first 2 months of 2009, 28 murders or murder attempts have happened in Athens – the number of those was 17 in 2008.