Scant force struggles with juvenile crime
Juvenile crime is changing in Greece. For the young, traffic violations are rapidly giving way to drug-related crimes and other more serious crimes. In the latest report of the Athens Minors Parole Service, 2,260 court rulings were handed down in the 2004-2005 period, an increase of 8 percent over the previous year. In these rulings, 245 of the minors were ordered to a juvenile parole office, which is supposed to help them with rehabilitation. However, there are only 17 parole officers for minors in Attica (which has slots for 34 posts) who must deal with all the new cases as well as older ones. The situation is the same in the provinces, where there are 85 officers for the entire region. Many areas do not have any parole officers. The staff shortage is just one of the problems. There is also a lack of staff training, legal specifications on the responsibilities of parole officers for minors, a code of ethics and computerized records. One of the few areas of support for juvenile parole officers is the new law on crime, which harmonized Greek legislation with that of the European Union. The new law added measures for rehabilitation and therapy, reduced the number of cases with imprisonment as a penalty and set age limits for penal treatment of minors. Still, the state has not been able to apply these new measures because of the lack of supporting infrastructure. For instance, municipalities are not ready to accept young offenders who have been ordered to do community service, so parole officers apply to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to carry out the work of counseling, therapy or rehabilitation. There are practically no cooperation protocols among parole services for minors and NGOs, which means that the care of the youngsters is at the discretion of the NGOs. Frequently, however, the NGOs refuse. As a result, the Minors Parole Service is constantly downgraded, as is the work of the parole officers. Once a branch with potential for development, the service has atrophied into an auxiliary to the minors’ court and an office for processing social workers’ reports and other documents.
