The 14-year-old was alone at a pizzeria next door in Evosmos, Thessaloniki, when a group of girls who had recently molested her asked her to go out for a while because they “wanted something.” They took her behind the town hall and began to beat her, and someone filmed what was happening on video and posted it on the network. tik tak. In another video, a 12-year-old boy is sexually abused by a 13-year-old. In the background is an unnamed village in Northern Greece. Things that “don’t happen here” happen. The tale of an uncontaminated starting point, of an immaculate childhood, of an innocent country is swept away by the wave. We also have (many) videos that prove it.

“I was never worried about the quantitative indicators of the increase in the number of offenses among children,” says “K” professor of criminology, EKPA Giannis Panoussi. “I have always believed that the qualitative characteristics of criminals play a decisive role. And today we are witnessing the transition from classic teenage crime – devils, riots, hooligans – to early adult crime – organization, violence, weapons. The old “game”, the pursuit with class tools and the “challenge” of the establishment, have been replaced by universal cruelty towards everyone. According to him, although the triptych – adventures – sex – money, which dominates the youth environment as an ideology, also includes violence in all its forms and manifestations, it is a fact that young people have become involved in the crimes of adults, sometimes helping and sometimes playing a leading role. “Murder is usually associated with domestic violence or a quarrel, while rape is characterized by the adoption of violent love experiences and disrespect for the other – as a body and as a soul. However, in every crime committed by a minor, one should also study the symbolism or the extreme game of risk that it hides.

In any case, according to the former minister, “today we are not talking about begging, or vagrancy, or the lost life of minors, or “educated and corrected” youth, or “morally dysfunctional” dangerous people. Today, situations have become wild.”

And society stands awkwardly. “Even if we examine the difficulties of social adaptation of some due to a “criminogenic infection”, usually from a negative family environment, this does not explain the increasing participation of minors in crime.”

As Mr. Panousis says, we have to review the various facts, principles and procedures. “A young man who drives at 16 and votes at 17 cannot be considered ‘irresponsible’ when he breaks the law. In any case, the pandemic, any crisis or new technologies are not to blame in themselves. Simply put, we are changing times. Family, society, collective consciousness, even honor and respect have changed the meaning and content. The same applies to the context of legality and lawlessness, morality and immorality, tolerance and complicity. Young people from all walks of life can often commit crimes commensurate with the opportunities given to them, but in general they are imbued with the same “counter-values” of indifference to the pain they inflict on the victim, cruelty to the sensitivity and dignity of the other – a completely distorted understanding limits of law.”

“They are imbued with the same “anti-values” regarding indifference to the pain they inflict on the victim,” Yiannis Panusis, EKPA criminology professor, tells K.

Responses to “injury”

Although each individual crisis cannot be “responsible” for the increase in youth crime, a psychologist-psychotherapist specializing in criminology Elena Kutsopoulou supports in “K” that young people are exposed to each new trauma without healing the previous one, while there are no available channels, safety valves, where young people can channel emotions such as anger, tension, sadness, rage. “It’s like a wound that bleeds, and after first aid, we decide to put a ganzaplast on it to avoid the suturing procedure. Next time we will hit the same place, which will be more sensitive due to his previous injury, and the wound will open again and again and again.”

isolation society

As Ms. Kutsopoulou says, a “culture of isolation” is largely responsible for this phenomenon. “There is a structural isolation in relation to the phenomenon of violence in its infancy, when there are still initial signs in the family, school, community. Such violent behavior tends to be overlooked and hushed up because managing it often causes embarrassment, shame and helplessness.” In this way, young people get the message that the authoritarian attitude is “passing”.

Vittorio Alfieri, the Italian playwright, said that “society is preparing a crime.” The perpetrator does it.” In the eyes of children and adolescents who commit crimes, I see a whole society of isolation, separation, dichotomy, introversion and guilt phobia, which consciously prefers to unsuccessfully invest in repression, because prevention involves facing one’s huge share of responsibility and thereby getting out of one’s shell, shaking off get off her ego, accept what she might not know, and invest in learning,” concludes Ms. Kutsopoulou.