The recent surge in mafia-related crime has prompted discussions about new policing strategies, including heightened presence in urban areas, armed patrols, and stricter surveillance at sports matches.
Nicos Trimikliniotis, director of the Centre for Fundamental Rights and Professor of Sociology, Social Science and Law at the University of Nicosia questions the effectiveness of these responses, suggesting they might reflect a broader societal panic rather than effective solutions.
In an interview with in-cyprus, he delves into the complexities of crime in Cyprus, drawing on historical contexts and contemporary challenges. He warns against the potential pitfalls of heavy-handed measures, highlighting the risks of further alienating already marginalized communities and exacerbating social divisions.
The atmosphere created around mafia-related crime has led to proposals for new policing measures, such as the presence of police vans in urban neighbourhoods, armed police patrolling, and increased checks of fans at stadiums. Do you consider this response proportionate, or a manifestation of a moral panic?
Over the last few weeks, we have witnessed some high-profile kinds of serious crimes such as murders by hitmen, bombings and wild-goose hunts with police helicopters. It is not surprising that these have been reported in the media the way have, i.e. as sensational and spectacular events that happen in action-and-violence movies.
The fact that recent murders seem connected to drug barons and to drug-and-crime wars in the battles for domination and street encroachment in Nicosia and Limassol, as well as control in the mafia underworld has made them even more ‘attractive’ for media speculation. This is just one type of crime reported – let’s call it mafia-type or underworld-type of crime.
This is often very violent. However, the most gruesome violent crime that was ever committed in Cyprus (I do not count here for ethnic-political violence) was the series of rapes and murders of migrant women, domestic workers and their children, by the Greek Cypriot army officer who buried his victims in Mitsero until he was discovered 2019: He strangled his victims and threw them down a manhole in Mitsero after he tricked his victims, by approaching them romantically and then strangled them and carried them to the abandoned quarry.
Let’s not forget how the depiction of gangsters and bandits has a long history; they are not just in movies like ‘The Godfather’ etc. We have our own long history, here in Cyprus, which lasts for over a century now, as recorded in the press and in folk songs.
Notorious murders, abductions, theft and violence by bandits, outlaws-gangsters from the late 19th century have been recorded and popularised by folk poets, such as Tsiapouras, Paleshis, Azinos etc. We have poems and stories about the notorious Hasambulia or of Yiallouris.
Later, in the 1940s, it was Mitas, the notorious fugitive in the 1940s who managed always to escape, becoming a headache for the British authorities, until he was eventually arrested, convicted and hanged. To this day his name, his audacity and his dexterity are associated in the common memory of the island with the ‘elusive Mitas’.
The ‘Zacharias’ brothers were a criminal clan that operated in Limassol (and the surrounding villages) from the early 1930s till the early 1960s, they were at war with the Colossiates. Both gangs engaged in cattle rustling, gambling, and prostitution and whose criminal activities led to the death of at least 186 people. These were mostly hated figures but for some, they were ‘folk-heroes’.
Since the 1980s we have patterns of a kind of ‘celebratory’, of ‘bandits’ with ‘cute’ nicknames in the media – reported on TV when they are caught or when they escape etc. Over the last 20 years, we have seen some high-profile violent crimes which have received major media attention – sometimes with the media getting it completely wrong by framing as the perpetrator the wrong person, destroying their lives.
The second type is ‘elite crime’: Recently we have also seen crimes reported involving millions of euros e.g. selling of passports, scandals about corruption, spying and surveillance etc. Remember that the Cypriot media did nothing about this until Al-Jazeera reported on it. It was a complete black-out by the Cypriot media. The reason is straightforward.
The third type is the so-called ‘white-collar crime’ (middle to upper classes) – corruption, fraud, embezzlement, and scams.
The fourth type of crime can be called ‘everyday’ or ‘petty crime’, committed by the poorer classes, such as the working class, or even those who are considered to be in the under-class or ‘lumpenproletariat’ – moonlighting, shoplifting, ‘cheating’ to receive welfare benefits. These types of petty crimes receive media attention and are often exaggerated and magnified to be blown out of proportion and out of context.
The fifth type of crime is ‘hooliganism’ and sports-related crimes. This receives massive attention and the usual recipes of law enforcement are highly problematic – surveillance, fan identity cards, stronger police presence, heavy-handed policing etc., simply displace and push violence elsewhere, often outside the stadiums.
The sixth type of crime is violence, labour and sexual trafficking and exploitation, including violence against children, which receives media attention but this is more often approached through a sensationalised depiction, rather than through a sustainable and investigative approach.
The seventh type of crime, under-reported, is police violence and corruption – including the prosecution system. This is very serious, but this is a matter that the media rarely dare to deal with.
I would like here to add another very serious type: hate crime – racial/ethnic or gender-based violence.
It was the sociologist Stanley Cohen in his classic book “Folk Devils and Moral Panics” who analysed the processes of moral panic construction, which tend to have their ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ as they typically follow a classic pattern:
- An event or a situation, an episode, or a person or a group, or a type of behaviour is portrayed as a threat to society, values and interests: it is often distorted and massively exaggerated. They are the ‘folk-devil’, receiving media attention. Now with social media, this is multiplied by a million.
- The media focus on the so-called ‘nature’ of these kinds of individuals being incriminated are portrayed in a specific, stereotypical way.
- Then the media ‘call in’ or present the self-appointed ‘saviours’ and ‘protectors’ of society’s moral values who express their outrage.
- Various ‘experts’ on the subject make assessments proposing solutions and ‘punishment’ for the guilty.
- Then the forces of ‘law-and-order’ such as the police, army, and law enforcement ‘come in’ to ‘restore order’.
A moral panic is based on the exaggerated notion that the behaviour of certain individuals or groups, of type of behaviour who are considered ‘deviant’. Calling something a ‘moral panic’ does not imply that this something does not exist or has not happened at all, or that the reaction is based on fantasy, hysteria, delusion etc.
It is an understanding of how events are ‘framed’ in the way they are represented. Sometimes they are completely distorted or exaggerated. Often those depicted are ethnic minorities, migrants, or youth subcultures, considered so problematic and so dangerous to society that it calls for the immediate punishment of the guilty and the restoration of damage and order.
Panic expresses feelings of tension such as fear, terror, anxiety, hatred, hostility, and a sense that the so-called moral norms are threatened, thus risking the ‘collapse of the social order’.
Now let’s come to policing. Any form of high-profile crime has its own people in politics, as well as within the repressive apparatus. The ineffectiveness of policing in crime prevention, the over-reaction ‘after’ high-profile crimes and heavy-handed policing, including human rights violations, are typical of how the same problem is reproduced.
I find the proposals for new policing measures (the presence of police vans in urban neighbourhoods, armed police patrolling, and increased checks of fans at stadiums) to be problematic, ineffective and dangerous.
Repressive measures don’t work – it is an indication that the ‘game has already been lost’ and they are policing the crisis, which is likely to multiply, as repression and violence bring about more violence and counter-violence; it is a vicious cycle.
What potential impacts on the relationship between law enforcement and the public might arise from implementing strict measures like the ones suggested by government officials?
The law-and-order proposals on policing are a public confidence disaster.
When there is so little public confidence in policing, how can they propose more heavy-handed policing? There is more potential for abuse of power, less accountability etc.
How do media representations contribute to shaping public perception of crime and the perceived need for stringent policing measures?
The media has an interest in selling i.e. getting more views and more hits. Therefore, they have an interest in distorting and exaggerating when there is no media accountability.
From years of study, it is now accepted by all that the role of the media internationally is not merely to report objectively.
Also, it is now well established that the public is not passive recipients of information to swallow everything the media offers to people; the old ‘propaganda model’ and fears of being ‘brainwashed’ have given way to a more sophisticated reading of this process of news-reporting-framing that meets an audience who react in different ways.
The depiction of crime is an active process.
Let’s put things in context. With the transformation of Cyprus into a finance and service economy in a Europeanised system, crime has adapted accordingly.
Can you provide examples where similar policing measures were taken in response to crime waves, and what were the long-term consequences on society?
Similar policing measures are of questionable success.
Measures must be propositional and be rooted properly in the societal context and the problems they need to address. I don’t see them having any success in Cyprus – if anything the confidence in the Police will be reduced even more in the long term.
Do you see the potential for the proposed measures to target specific groups, such as football fans, leading to social divisions or stigmatization?
Yes. I think that it is likely that this will lead to more stigmatisation, stereotyping, reinforcing and reproducing social divisions and potentially leading to polarisation, even increasing conflict and violence, rather than reducing it.
Are there more community-oriented approaches to addressing crime that could be more effective than heavy-handed policing measures?
Community policing requires a very different understanding of ‘policing’. It means accountable policing with respect to human rights and moving away from violent policing. I think this is the only way forward.
Cyprus has witnessed increasing levels of violence in recent years, including physical attacks against teachers during the pandemic, injuries of peaceful protestors by police forces, anti-migrant pogroms, hooligan violence, and mafia-related murders. How do you interpret this intensification of violence?
Yes, violence has been increasing massively, proliferating into different spheres of life over the last few years.
Violence via social media, such as threats, intimidation, abuse, cyber-bullying etc., further multiplies violence within and beyond school and workplace bullying. Often this is even more sinister than raw violence at school or work. This is all connected to the rising inequalities; precarity, misery and lack of hope and aspiration for anything better in the future.
Let me comment on the appalling and unprecedented 2023 pogroms here.
These were instigated, organised and executed by far-right and racist groups against migrants and anti-racists. We had a series of racist violent attacks in Cyprus just after EU accession – violence at the English school for instance, or the stubbing of the Turkish-Cypriot musician by neo-Nazis at the Finikoudes antiracist festival in 2010.
The role of far-right political collaborators was crucial, and the media was catalytic in distorting and amplifying what was often false news that fed anti-immigrant and xenophobic hysteria.
The racist riots of 2023 were a culminating event that followed the form of a classic phenomenon of cultivating and inflating a racialised ‘moral panic’. This is hardly new; Stuart Hall and his colleagues describe this in his book about racism in the late 1970s in the UK, called “Policing the Crisis: Mugging, Law and Order”.
In the pogroms in Chloraka and Limassol, there was clear organisation and execution on the basis of a plan. The role of the police in this was lamentable! They were there and did nothing.
