Master Thesis (Cohort: September 2017)
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Institute of Security and Global Affairs Leiden University – Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs MSc in Crisis & Security Management Master Thesis (Cohort: September 2017) Vasileios Papageorgiou (s2090112) Supervisor: Drs. Tim Dekkers Second Reader: Dr. G.M. van Buuren Master Thesis Social Disorder in the City of Athens During the Economic Crisis Wordcount: 21720 10/06/18 Acknowledgements Many people contributed, one way or another, for the completion of this thesis. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Drs. Dekkers, for his guidance and his valuable suggestions during all this time. I would also like to thank Dr. Elke Devroe, for introducing me into the field of (urban) criminology while having a completely different academic background (BA in International Relations). Moreover, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors at the Center for Security Studies (KEMEA) where I currently do my internship, Akis Karatrantos and Vasileios Theofilopoulos, for helping me to communicate with the relevant authorities and organizations in order to conduct the interviews that I wanted and also for their general comments on my questionnaires that I finally sent to those authorities. I would also like to thank my friends Christos and Dimitris, for their invaluable help during the field research and their assistance in taking photos of the areas. Finally, I would like to wholeheartedly thank my parents and my friend Sophia, for listening patiently to my concerns and for their general support during all this time. 1 Table of contents 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 4 2. Theoretical framework: Social disorganization theory in context ...................... 7 2.1 The discourse about the causes of crime .......................................................... 7 2.2 Social Disorganization Theory .......................................................................... 9 2.3 The types of disorder and the case of Athens ................................................ 12 3. Research Methods .................................................................................................. 16 3.1 Operationalization ............................................................................................ 17 3.2 Research Design................................................................................................ 19 3.3 Methods: Triangulation of methods ............................................................... 20 3.4 Limitations and possible pitfalls ..................................................................... 24 4. Analysis and Results .............................................................................................. 25 4.1 The city of Athens and the economic crisis .................................................... 25 4.2 Crime and social disorder in a crisis context ................................................. 27 4.2.1 The implications of poverty and economic deprivation ......................... 28 4.2.2 The concept of ethnic heterogeneity ......................................................... 33 4.2.3 The concept of physical dilapidation ....................................................... 36 4.3 The administrative perspective on social disorders: Communication with the Hellenic Police Force & the Municipality of Athens..................................... 41 4.3.1 Questionnaire and discussion with the head of KYADA’s Social Service Department, Ms. Eleni Triantafyllou ............................................................... 41 2 4.3.2 Questionnaires given to the General Police Directorate of Attica & the Sub-Directorate of Drug Enforcement of the Hellenic Police Force .............. 44 4.3.3 Concluding remarks on questionnaires ................................................... 47 4.4 Field research in the public spaces of Athens ................................................ 49 4.4.1 Previous empirical researches on social & physical disorder on Athens; The trajectory of social disorder during the economic crisis ......................... 49 4.4.2 The current situation in the public spaces of Athens; A field observation on social disorders and physical dilapidation ............................. 50 4.4.3 Follow-up research on the Athens Metro stations .................................. 67 4.4.4 Concluding remarks on field research..................................................... 70 5. Discussion & Conclusion ....................................................................................... 73 5.1 Discussion of results ......................................................................................... 73 5.2 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 75 5.3 Limitations and suggestions for future research ........................................... 77 5.4 Recommendations ............................................................................................ 78 Reference List ............................................................................................................. 80 Primary Sources ..................................................................................................... 80 Secondary Sources.................................................................................................. 81 Appendix A ................................................................................................................. 86 Appendix B ................................................................................................................. 91 3 1. Introduction As the phenomenon of urbanization seem to become more intense in the western world, and as the volume of everyday activities taking place in contemporary metropolises is in turn increasing, problems such as social anxiety and insecurity of their residents have subsequently also increased (Urdal & Hoelscher p.513, 2012). Moral panic and relevant phenomena are nowadays evident in populous cities due to vast changes that are transforming the hitherto social structure and values inside a society (Young p.4, 2009). As a result, crime and social disorder incidents in populous metropolises are perhaps the main factors that contribute to the culmination of insecurity among the citizens. While overall crime rates keep falling on a global scale ("The curious case of the fall in crime", 2013) civilians are feeling insecure about other relevant societal problems that have also a direct effect on their well-being inside their cities of residence. According to Garofalo and Laub (1978), urban social disorder is perhaps the core of those sources of “fear” amongst the citizens, surpassing even the fear for criminal acts (Yang, 2014). Social disorder is generally deemed as “unsettling or potentially threatening and perhaps unlawful public behavior” (Skogan, 2012, p.175). A wide range of phenomena can be interpreted as social disorder acts including (but not limited to) public drinking, insults between neighbors, homelessness, panhandling, public use of (legal) drugs, having to witness street violence in public space, and riots (Devroe, 2017). Given the ambiguity that characterizes the notion of social disorder, there is no accepted way of dealing with that kind of problems. Although some countries prefer to adopt a more tolerant approach towards the homeless or panhandlers, others have a preference in adopting more aggressive measures of social control against those social groups, even by criminalizing homeless people in public spaces and by handing fines to them (Podoletz, 2016). Following the outburst of the economic crisis on 2008, those problems increased in numbers and severity in many of the western countries, fueling up this discourse and underlining the importance of implementing concrete measures by the local and national authorities to effectively deal or alleviate those phenomena. Undoubtedly, the most characteristic example of a European country that faced the severe consequences of the economic crisis is Greece and more specifically, its capital, Athens. The populous city of Athens is still facing various problems of social disorder directly related to low income and poverty. The rates of the latter have skyrocketed 4 since the beginning of the crisis that affected Greece in mid-2010 (City of Athens p.31, 2017). According to the Chicago School of criminology, one of the most prominent schools of thought in urban sociology, there is a correlation between social phenomena such as economic crises and poverty and an analogous increase in most of the crime rate indicators (Shaw & Mc. Kay, 1942). However, few studies have focused on how an economic crisis influences the development of social disorder phenomena that are usually not included in the penal code of most “civil law” countries. Consequently, in this paper, we will try to contextualize the implications of poverty and low income in the public order of the city center of Athens in the context of the economic crisis, by applying the lenses of the social disorganization theory of Chicago School. By doing so, this research will in turn highlight the existence (or not) of poverty-related social disorder phenomena in certain areas of the city center, as this is considered as a necessary step in order to apply the selected theory on this specific case study and test its explanatory power. As a result, the research question of this