The Political Economy of Greek Policing- Between Neo-liberalism and the Sovereign State

Policing and Society, 2003, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 271304

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING:BETWEEN NEO-LIBERALISM AND THE SOVEREIGN

STATE

GEORGE S. RIGAKOSi and GEORGIOS PAPANICOLAOUii

iDepartment of Law, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada; iiSchool of Law, University ofEdinburgh, UK

(Received October 2002; In final form February 2003)

This article interrogates historical developments, modern structures and future trends in Greek policing fromthe viewpoint of contemporary neo-liberal policing and social theory. We argue throughout this article thatalthough neo-liberal thinking has indeed recently crept into the rhetoric and logics of Greek governance, theparticular social, geographical and political history of the Hellenic Republic has muted these tendenciessignificantly for policing. Rather than reflecting changes toward post-Keynesian or postmodern policing,Greece (and Greek policing) is confronted by the basic modernist dilemma of ensuring state integrity bothphysically in the material military security of its borders and vast coastline, and ideologically in the battlefor establishing public trust in the efficiency and effectiveness of government. This article analyzes relevantstatutes and offers data on the growth of the Greek police and the relatively small private security sector.We conclude that while it is tempting to point to Greece as an exception to the general theoretical maximthat the provision of policing is fragmenting and de-centring as the state is shrinking, there are more andmore examples of the recrudescence, re-emergence and continuing central relevance of the state for securityprovision in other national contexts.

Keywords: Greek police; Political economy; Neo-liberalism

This article is concerned with analyzing the historical development and modernorganization of public and private policing in Greece. While such an examination islong overdue simply in terms of providing basic descriptive information in the Englishlanguage, the purpose is more importantly to make sense of this history and organiza-tion in the context of existing policing theory. As others have observed (e.g., DeWaard1999; Johnston 1992), in many cases theorizing about the contemporary configurationand future direction of policing (both public and private) has often outpaced thecollection of basic statistical, historical and other empirical data.

In the case of Greek policing, previously published data have been unreliable, whichcan lead to erroneous conclusions about the national state of affairs relative to othernations.1 The lack of reliable data on Greek policing or information about its modern

Correspondence to: George S. Rigakos, Department of Law, Carleton University, C572 Loeb Building, 1125Colonel By Drive, Ottawa K1S 5B6, Canada.

1 We will deal more directly with the size of the public and private policing sectors relative to other statesin a later section of this article.

ISSN 1043-9463 print/ISSN 1477-2728 online/03/030271-34 2003 Taylor & Francis LtdDOI: 10.1080/1043946032000102898

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU272

organization and future direction in an era of increasing globalization and neo-liberalideology is a limit to contemporary theorizing about police, capital and governance.2While Greece is a state well ensconced within contemporary international military,economic and political organizations, its historical development and contemporarygeopolitical position often make it unique among nations. Indeed, up until May 2002,Greece had (at least formally) been in a state of war mobilization since the 1974Turkish invasion of Cyprus3 and is still one of the few remaining Western nations tohave mandatory military service for men. At first glance, therefore, the potential role ofthe state in contemporary Greece seems more salient and fundamental than for othernations. However, there is nothing that immediately follows from the fact that Greeceis a more militarized nation4 that would necessitate the presence of either more or lesspolice, be they public or private. In fact, equally defensible hypotheses could bemustered to predict either a smaller or larger role for policing in this context.

In this article, we return to extant theorizing about the (post)modern state andneo-liberal ideology in shaping the organization of government and policing. It isorganized into three major parts, each dealing in turn with the past, present and futureof Greek policing.5 The first part addresses the historical formation and deployment ofthe Greek police, both city and national, from Ottoman rule until 1984. We divide thishistory into four general periods specifically dealing with police organizational changeand with reference to the influence of foreign policing models, political economy andGreeces involvement in world, regional and civil wars. To the best of our knowledge,no such history has been published in the English language. In the second part we turnto describing the contemporary organization, context and relative size of Greek publicand private policing sectors after legislative changes in 1984. The final part attempts toconnect this history to current theorizing about the state, sovereignty and the future ofGreek policing.

We argue throughout this article that although neo-liberal thinking has recently creptinto the rhetoric and logics of Greek governance, the particular social, geographical andpolitical history of the Hellenic Republic has muted these tendencies significantly forpolicing. A history of internal political strife, partisanship, civil war and revolution haveleft a significant mark on the Greek police as successive governments since liberationpurged and reinstated officers on political grounds or deployed the Chorofylake(National Gendarmerie) as political soldiers of the right. The culture and history ofGreek policing is tied to a political economy of state sovereignty in the face of repeated

2 In fact, this limitation is not restricted to Greece. Other European Union countries such as Italy, Spain,Portugal and even France have been largely ignored in modern theorizing about policing which is almost entirelyAnglo-centric; drawing conclusions about policing trends in North America, Australia and Britain that may havelimited applicability elsewhere.

3 Presidential Decree 506/20 July 1974 Regarding General Mobilizations. The war stance had been a resultof the invasion of Cyprus by Turkey during the disastrous military junta of Colonel Papadopoulos that lastedfrom 1968 to 1974. The reasons for dropping this formal war mobilization had much to do with problems relatingto the imposition of Military Penal Code sentences to convicted conscripts that were equal to those administeredin times of war (see July 2002, p. 116 in Flight, Abatement of General Mobilizations).

4 International figures for 2001 place Greece second among Organization for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD) countries in percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) spent on the military (4.9%),well ahead of South Korea (3.2%), the United States of America (3.2%) and the United Kingdom (2.7%). Notcoincidentally, only Turkey (5.6%) spends a larger percentage of its GDP on the military (Central IntelligenceAgency 2002).

5 Because private security did not appear in any significant way in Greece until the late 1980s, we usethe term police instead of policing to describe most of the historical development of Hellenic securityprovision.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING 273

threats to its existence. Rather than reflecting changes toward post-Keynesian orpostmodern policing, Greece (and Greek policing) is confronted by the basic modernistdilemma of ensuring state integrity both physically in the material military security ofits borders and vast coastline, and ideologically in the battle for establishing public trustin the efficiency and effectiveness of government.

Today, the Helleniki Astynomia (Greek Police) is actually growing in size, notshrinking, and the private security sector is still very much in its infancy. Of course, thisdoes not deny that there have indeed been recent, and quite innovative, developmentsin Greek policing that seek to extend the arm of the state while at the same timeminimizing its financial risk. These may also be interpreted as policies informed byneo-liberal thinking, yet they differ considerably from developments in North Americaand northern Europe. We conclude that, while it is tempting to point to Greece as anexception to the general theoretical maxim that the provision of policing is fragmentingand de-centring as the state is shrinking, there are more and more examples of therecrudescence, re-emergence and continuing central relevance of the state for securityprovision in other national contexts.

HISTORY

The history of the Greek police is invariably tied to the various arrangements ofthe state after liberation from the Ottoman Empire, but the general formation, deploy-ment and structure of the Chorofylake, at least structurally, remained largely resilientto these changes right up to 1984. Successive governments have often had anuneasy relationship with the Chorofylake, occasionally resulting in wholesale purges ofthe force depending on the political stripe of the party (or junta) in power. Despite this,the overall mission, function and relevance of the Chorofylake has been largelyunchanged since the inception of the force in 1833. This has been principally due to theneed for the maintenance of a militarized police presence in order to assist the army inputting down successive waves of insurrection, to pacify countryside banditry andsuppress the revolutionary threat of communism. Moreover, the Chorofylakes were aready military force used to assert Greek sovereignty in newly acquired territories afterliberation, for the guarding and movement of prisoners of war during repeated militarycampaigns and even the direct involvement of the force as a fighting contingent inwartime.

While the Chorofylake managed to remain intact throughout the twentieth century,Greek city policing underwent a number of significant transformations. The originalidea of locally funded municipal forces unraveled very quickly under the duress ofpartisanship, economic scarcity, cronyism and lack of public confidence. By 1849, localcity policing in Athens and Piraeus had been transferred into the hands of the nationalgovernment and officers recruited directly by the state. Even after these changes, intensepartisanship often turned the municipal police into local political foot soldiers eventually prompting the government in 1893 to transfer the administrative city policeunder the control of the Army. This arrangement was also short-lived, and in 1906 thecity police were disbanded altogether. For fourteen years, between 1906 and 1920,general police duties for urban centres in Greece fell under the control of theChorofylake, until the Astynomia Poleon (City Police) were organized. Here again,however, the Astynomia Poleon remained a national agency, albeit separate and


specialized and with their own rank and pay structure apart from the Chorofylakes whostill policed the majority of Greece up until the amalgamation of the two forces in 1984.Although uneven and hardly following a teleological path, the history of Greek policingfrom post-Ottoman rule to the present day can be characterized by the continuousre-investment and entrenchment of the state, eventually culminating in the creation ofa single national force responsible for the whole country.

Ottoman PolicingThe social and political organization of the Greek communities under Ottoman ruledirectly benefited the potential for revolution. While the militia-type organization ofpolicing in this period bears little relation to that of the independent Greek state after1830, these conditions influenced the formation and operation of early police bureaucra-cies. What is important to note about the organization of the Greek population underOttoman rule is the considerable autonomy that the local communities enjoyed. Theformation of these local communities dates back to the Byzantine era, and they survivedthe Ottoman invasion and the upheaval it brought about in the region (Vakapopoulos2001: 23, 2331, 77). Rather than hinder these relationships, the establishment ofOttoman rule actually reinforced the development of the Greek self-governed localcommunities.

In many ways, the social organization of these communities were very much differentfrom those ascribed to typical Western feudal societies (Filias 1996: 21; Malkidis 2001:1314). The power relations in eastern agrarian communities produced a local eliteChristian/Greek aristocracy under the Ottoman regime of land ownership whoseaccumulation of social power was tied to the exploitation of land.6 This systemconstituted a hierarchy and was directly dependent on the power particularly themilitary power of the higher Ottoman authority. Unlike the Western feudal model,these relations did not depend on the local accumulation of power by the variousOttoman warlords and officials. Essentially, their role was one of functionaries,especially as tax collectors in the service of the sultan (Filias 1996: 18). As a result,alongside the official Ottoman administrative structure, a discrete and largely auton-omous system of local government staffed and run by Greeks was developed and cameto exercise extensive administrative and judicial powers, including law enforcement andthe protection of order in the community (Giannopoulos 1975: 139; Troupakis 1904:210211; Stamatis 1971: 40).7

The organization of the local government in the Greek communities followed a

6 It is useful to note that the Ottoman regime of land ownership was essentially a regime of state ownershipthat allowed the exploitation of land by Muslims or non-Muslims (Malkidis 2001: 1314). As a result, whenan area of state-owned land was liberated during the struggle for independence, the ownership passed to theGreek state (Despotopoulos 1975: 609610). These lands were known as the National Lands. The issue ofwhether they were going to be distributed to peasants constituted a major problem for most of the nineteenthcentury, and is known as the National Lands Problem.

7 Of course, any serious violation of the order was bound to be suppressed by the Ottoman authorities bymeans of military force. The territory of the local communities formed part of the Ottoman administrativedivisions, whose authorities were responsible for the enforcement of the Ottoman rule. The relevant divisionshere came at the lower part of the administrative hierarchy, and were: the sajak, headed by the sajak-bei, whowas the higher military, administrative and judicial Ottoman official; and the subdivision of the sajak, run bythe voevoda or soubassi, who primarily had the responsibility for collecting taxes and enforcing judicialdecisions. The voevoda was assisted by the bouloukbassi, who commanded an armed group and performed theactual law enforcement duties (Troupakis 1904: 214).


recognizable pattern, even though regional variations existed (for a detailed descriptionof these variations, see Troupakis 1904: 219ff). A typical community would include theGreek population of each city, village or island, the members of which would normallyelect annually a number of officials, known as the demogerontes (Troupakis 1904: 215;Giannopoulos 1975: 137; Gardikas 1961: 8). These elected officials were normallymembers of the wealthier and more powerful families that made up the local aristoc-racy. Under the system of local government, therefore, the social power of thesewealthier groups was also transformed into political power among the local populations(Filias 1996: 23; Giannopoulos 1975: 138; Vournas 1997: 2). In turn, the demogeronteswould elect one person, the kotzambassis, who together with a local Ottoman officialwere known as the proestoi they constituted the head of the local government andwere also responsible for the policing of the local population (Troupakis 1904: 216;Gardikas 1961: 8; Vakalopoulos 2001: 78). For this purpose, smaller communitiescould raise an armed group of 20 to 30 men to perform policing duties under thecommand of the demogerontes.

The local proestoi normally had a say in the actions of the armed group which wascommanded by the Ottoman law enforcement functionary known as the bouloukbassi.The armed men were given the primary tasks of hunting down armed bandits andsecuring the roads and passes, a critical task for commerce in notoriously mountainousGreece. They were also responsible for peacekeeping and the maintenance of publicorder in the local communities. Whether these groups were under the command ofOttoman authorities or under the command of the community, the expenses for theirmaintenance were invariably paid locally, sometimes by means of a special tax(Gardikas 1961: 9; Vournas 1997: 33).

It is important to note that the membership of these armed groups was normallyGreek. In fact, the groups of armed bandits who were being hunted were usually peoplewho rebelled against the Ottoman regime, and sought protection and a base for theirraids in the mountainous areas of continental Greece. These groups of armed banditswere known as kleftes (thieves). Sometimes the kleftes or their leader were givenamnesty by the Ottoman authorities in exchange for their services in protecting an areaagainst other thieves, and from then on, in most regions of Greece, they were knownas armatoloi (men of arms), and their leader armatolos or kapitanos. Thus, the roles ofhunters and hunted were interchangeable, because of the common origin of thesegroups, and because the armatoloi often rebelled again. As a result, the activities ofboth groups created problems for the Ottoman administration, but it was convenient forthe Ottoman authorities to use them instead of a regular army.

The practice of hiring the armatoloi for policing purposes was abolished in the earlynineteenth century, when, in conditions of general rebellion, the Ottoman authoritiesattempted to eliminate both groups by means of military power (Vournas 1997: 3;Troupakis 1904: 286; Vakalopoulos 1975: 417). These armed groups survived,however, and being large enough, formed the core of the Greek army that fought inthe struggle for independence after 1821. In this way, the particular policing arrange-ments in effect under Ottoman rule proved vital in the rebellions that led to the creationof the modern Greek state. For successive governments after liberation, however, thearmed mountain revolutionaries proved to be a serious obstacle to achieving hegemoniccontrol over the Greek countryside. Realizing this, one of the first tasks of Greecesforeign-imposed monarchy was the cooption and/or pacification of these armedrebels.


Post-liberation Ottonian Continental Policing, 18331906The modern Greek state came into existence in 1830 in an agreement known as theLondon Protocol, when the Great Powers (Great Britain, France and Russia) recog-nized Greeces independence. In the years leading up to the London Protocol, thesuccesses of the struggle for independence had resulted in the liberation of southernGreece and the establishment of a political authority under Governor Ioannis Kapo-distrias, a Greek who formerly worked for the Russian diplomatic service. The periodof Kapodistrias, which ended violently with his assassination in 1831, should be bestregarded as transitional. Although some steps were made toward the creation of a Greekpolice force, the work of Kapodistrias does not seem to bear any importance fordevelopments after 1833 (see Troupakis 1904: 296). Immediately after his assassin-ation, the Great Powers proposed naming a monarch for Greece. The person chosen wasthe Bavarian prince Otto, son of the Bavarian monarch Louis I. Since Otto was a minorat the time of his arrival in Greece in 1833, a council of regency was nominated to assisthim in his reign. The council, composed of academics and statesmen, undertook the taskof organizing the kingdoms administrative and judicial system, and essentially hadunlimited power because Greece had no constitution at the time. It is the work of thecouncil that gave Greece its first police bureaucracies.

Immediately after the initial successes of the revolution, the Greeks had to respondto the problem of establishing a working state for the liberated territories. This gave riseto extremely sharp confrontations between the armed groups and the military leaders ofthe revolution, who were generally inspired by liberal ideas and originated from thepoorest segments of the population; and the various local aristocracies, who were theland and ship owners; together with a class of educated men, who were formerly partof the higher Ottoman bureaucracy. Obviously, the land-owning aristocracy possessedsignificant political power, as its members exercised authority in the local communitieseven before the revolution. Around 1825 it was already obvious that the revolution wasin immediate danger of suppression, and at the same time, that the revolution could besaved and an independent Greek state could be established through the intervention ofthe Great Powers. As a result of this belief, the political factions among the politiciansof that time were identified by their affiliation with one of the Great Powers: GreatBritain, France and Russia (Vakalopoulos 2001: 212; Vournas 1997: 247; Petropoulosand Koumarianou 1977: 25, 1982: 70; Filias 1996: 98).8

The results of party rivalry and the subsequent establishment of the regime ofabsolute (non-constitutional) monarchy in early modern Greece confirmed the hege-monic role and political power of the local aristocracies. Of course, this also had theeffect of disenfranchising and alienating the armed peasant revolutionaries who liber-ated Greece. The stark class division between the post-Ottoman aristocracy and therevolutionary armatoloi boiled over on the issue of National Lands. The masses ofpeasants and fighters expected the distribution of those lands as a sign of recognitionof their contribution to the cause of independence, and of course as a means to settledown and improve their living conditions. Thus, a new revolutionary dialectic hademerged after liberation. In the eyes of these men, who were generally inspired by

8 The party rivalry was also an expression of the struggle between the local aristocracies and the fighters ofthe struggle, as each of these groups more or less identified with one of them. As these parties survived theKapodistrian period, and continued to exist in the Ottonian period, their rivalry was transplanted in theadministration of the independent state and virtually permeated the political life of Greece until at least themid-1850s.


politically liberal ideas, the Ottonian regime, which was imposed by the Great Powers,clearly appeared to be an unlawful totalitarian regime (Vournas 1997: 243; Vakalopou-los 2001: 228). This particular aspect was accentuated by the fact that a Bavarian forceof 3,500 mercenaries had arrived in Greece together with Otto and the council in 1833and formed the kingdoms regular army (Vournas 1997: 237).

The territory of the new state was so ravaged by the continuous and brutal fightingthat the majority of its population of nearly 700,000 people lived in conditions of utterpoverty. The fighters had become a redundant and dangerous armed mass of about5,000 men (Petropoulos and Koumarianou 1982: 93). In fact, since the arrival of Ottoin 1833, the fledgling government was forced to put down eight separate significantuprisings.9 Large tracts of Greece seemed ungovernable as the mountain revolutionariesdemanded an end to conscription, taxation without representation and the introductionof a constitutional democracy. Upon the councils arrival, these men had been orderedto turn in their weapons a demand that was regarded as deeply insulting as most ofthem expected to be part of the regular army. While some men sought employment withthe landlords and the local aristocrats, many simply returned to the life in the mountainsand rebellion (Vournas 1997: 243). Banditry was rife.

It was under these conditions that the members of the council of regency, who wererespectable statesmen and academics of European origin, shaped the first police systemof Greece. Their intention was to model it on systems existing in continental Europe,particularly the French system, which typifies a continental European police (cf. Reith1956; Emsley 1999). The system included a national gendarmerie and multiple munici-pal police forces, whose size could vary according to local policing needs. In 1833, theChorofylake became the first police force of modern Greece.10 The Chorofylakes weregiven the role of a military police, and were designated as part of the Army: as a result,military laws and regulations were also applicable to them. The first Chief of theChorofylake was the Frenchman Francois Graillard.

The new Greek government was desperate not to further alienate its armed rebels.The state pursued both a policy of pacification and cooption that turned out to beineffective. Provisions of the 1833 Royal Decree suggest that the councils intentionwas to entice the former fighters of the struggle for independence into the new force.Those men, still armed and desperately poor, represented a very serious problem asmany of them had turned to armed robbery and committed various acts of insubordina-tion against the monarchy (Koppa 2002: 137; Vournas 1997: 240). A special clause(Art. 9 of the Decree) dealt specifically with the issue of the admission of the formerfighters of the struggle for independence, making provisions for their inclusion in theforce. This proved no easy task as the regular army had already clashed repeatedly withthe fighters (Vournas 1997: 237). The creation of the new force therefore, was met withsuspicion, and although the Decree provided for 1,054 officers, only about 800 menjoined initially (Petropoulos and Koumarianou 1977: 40; Decree 3.6.1833: Art. 3).11

9 On the island of Tinos, three times in Mani, Messinia and Arcadia, Arcanania, Patras, the islands of Hydraand Spetses, Pylia and finally in Athens in 1843 which forced Otto to call a constitutional convention.

10 It was created by the Decree Regarding the Formation of the Gendarmerie, dated 3 June 1833. Themission of the gendarmerie, stated in Art. 1 of the Decree, was to strengthen and protect the common safety;to prevent any breach of the common peace and any criminal act; and to intervene actively and speedily, inorder to find and apprehend the criminals, should any criminal act be committed.

11 Exceptionally, they could join the gendarmerie until the age of 45, while any other recruit had to be youngerthan 40. Also, a requirement for admission was the ability to read and write correctly. However, this did notapply in the case of former fighters who joined the gendarmerie as infantry (Daskalakis 1973: 30). There are


The municipal police were another basic component of the policing system designedby the Ottonian council of regency. It was part of the general organization of the localgovernment, which was also part of the same Decree regarding the formation anddivision of municipalities (10 January 1834). It authorized the local government, andparticularly the mayor (Art. 91) to exercise police powers within the territory of eachmunicipality. The mayor was also responsible for the creation of a local police force byrequesting the appointment by the government of one (or two) police official(s), theastynomos. If the municipality was large enough, or if special needs demanded, themunicipal police could be organized in more departments, to ensure proximity. Thelower ranks of the municipal police were filled by personnel appointed by the mayor:these officers were known as the erenofylakes (guards of the peace) or police guards.For rural areas, it was possible to similarly appoint agrofylakes (rural guards).12

The first important characteristic of the municipal police was that it cost the centralgovernment nothing. The municipalities were by law requested to finance the operationof their own police force by means of income generated through municipal taxation,fines, donations, or even the voluntary work of citizens. The second characteristic is thecategorization of police work into administrative and judicial policing, which wasintroduced by a subsequent Decree regarding municipal police (31 December 1836).According to this distinction, administrative police pertained to law enforcement andcrime prevention, while judicial police pertained to the investigation of crimes and thecollection of evidence in order to arrest offenders and refer them to the criminal justiceauthorities.13 While it is customary for police historians (mostly those who wereformerly police officers of the state police forces) to dismiss the municipal police forceas ineffective and unprofessional, the assumption that the municipal police sometimesplayed important roles within the policing system of the Ottonian era is supported byofficial reports of the situation in Greece. A circular of the Ministry of the Interior,

Footnote continuedno published data about the development of the gendarmeries strength during the 1830s. However, until 1847the number of gendarmerie infantrymen had grown to 1,100 from an initial 805 in 1833, and for cavalrymento 150 from the initial 120 (Decree of 30 May 1847). For 1847, the authorized strength of the force was setat 1,589 officers and men (Law O/1848). As the population estimate for 1847 (based on the 1845 census) was973,472, this returns a ratio of 163.2 gendarmes per 100,000 people a large police force indeed, consideringthat policing was mainly the responsibility of the municipal police.

12 The system of municipal police was organized in detail by the Decree Rregarding Municipal Police of31 December 1836.

13 This categorization was preceded by the provisions of the Penal Procedure of 1834, which formallyspecified that the mayor and the municipal police official could act as investigating officers in a criminalinvestigation (Art. 17). This distinction is based on legal criteria, and remains valid even today (Tachos 1990:60). Administrative policing is more generally defined as police work that is aimed at the prevention of anyunlawful activities, whether criminal or not. Administrative policing supervises the application of laws andregulations in everyday social activities, including traffic, commerce, sanitation and construction. On the otherhand, judicial policing is regarded as being auxiliary to the activities of the judicial authorities, and concernsspecific tasks, normally prescribed by legislation regarding criminal procedure, and follows the instructions ofthe public prosecutor or the investigating judge. These duties include: arrests and detention, serving warrantsand collecting evidence (Tachos 1990: 61; Karavitis 1998: 11). In short, judicial policing is the exercise of thesum of the powers given to the police by the Criminal Procedure. The distinction can be further clarified byreference to the fact that, in the original system of the 1830s, the Commander (i.e., Prefect) who was empoweredto supervise the municipal police in its administrative police duties was the administrative authority of the widerarea; while the supervising authority for the judicial police was the local Public Prosecutor (Troupakis 1904:308). One cannot fail to note that the policing system introduced by the council of regency in the mid-1830shas remained essentially unaltered since then as the defining characteristic of Greek police forces is the mixednature of its activities (i.e., both administrative and judicial policing). In any case, there has never been in thehistory of Greek police any trend to create separate specialized forces dedicated to one or the other domain.A single police organization was (and still is) empowered to carry out all tasks within its jurisdiction.


signed by the Minister (todays equivalent of prime minister) I. Kolletis, dated 13February 1846, reads that: experience has proven that wherever the municipalauthorities acted sincerely toward the goal of eliminating armed robbery, armed robberyhas been instantly eliminated (Government Gazette no. 4/1846). An 1836 Decreeregarding the obligations of municipalities as to committed armed robberies withintheir territory, issued 13 November 1836, specifically authorized the municipal author-ities to act toward the elimination of this problem. The provisions of this Decree werespecified as temporary, expiring in 1838. However, after encouraging results, itsduration was extended until 1841.

Despite these reported successes, it can hardly be ignored that municipalities werenot particularly interested in the organization or training of their police officers (orperhaps they could hardly afford it). There is not a single report about the operation ofa police academy operated by any municipality throughout the history of the municipalpolice until 1893. Policing nineteenth-century Greek cities was a task met simply by areliance on prior experiences or brute force (Stamatis 1971: 62). Most importantly, asthe individuals who filled the lower ranks of the force were appointed by the mayor,partisan considerations played a prominent role in appointments. In many instances,municipal police officers served as the mayors private army, or as a partisan intimida-tion force before and after local elections (Stergioulis 2001: 39; Naskos 1932: 188).

These problems, together with the increase of the population in the area of Athens,led to the creation of a special police force for Athens and Piraeus in 1849 (LawPKT/1849). This force (the Administrative Police of Athens and Piraeus) wasstate-controlled, relieving the municipal authorities of Athens and Piraeus of theirpolicing responsibilities. Apart from the fact that officers of this force were appointedby the state rather than municipal authorities, there was no difference in the powers itsmembers could exercise (Arts. 1 and 6). Thus, the name Administrative Police israther misleading because the force engaged in both administrative and judicial policing(Stamatis 1971: 70).14

The reform of 1849 had minimal results: first, it did not bring about any change inthe police forces of other municipalities; and second, the new force operated on theexisting infrastructure and could not be kept away from the intense partisan rivalries ofthe second half of the nineteenth century. As governments came and went, so did thepersonnel of the Administrative Police. Finally, in 1893 the government of CharilaosTrikoupis abolished all municipal police forces. Under Law BPH/1893, all policepowers were transferred to the Army; the Chorofylake continued to police all areasexcept Athens and Piraeus. In the capital, the officers of the Administrative Police wereplaced under the orders of Army commissioned officers, and formed the Astyfylaki (cityguard). However, this reoganization was also short-lived. After the lost war of 1897,15the Chorofylake became the main element of the police force, as the rest of the Armywas in serious need of reorganization. This development led to Law PE/1906, underthe provisions of which the Chorofylake became exclusively responsible for policingthe whole of Greece (Stergioulis 2001: 41; Stamatis 1971: 98; Naskos 1932: 196).Municipal policing had also collapsed as the state went bankrupt in 1893 after

14 In 1884, this force had 332 officers.15 Border clashes between Greece and Turkey in April 1897 instigated a large assault by Ottoman troops,

forcing the Greek army south of Larissa. By November, Greece had to concede lost territory to the Turks undera negotiated truce.


massive infrastructure projects and a naval embargo by the Great Powers tapped thetreasury.16

Thus, by the beginning of the twentieth century, Greece was still engaged incampaigns internally to pacify banditry and revolution, and externally in trying toextend the borders of the state to encompass Greeks not yet liberated from Ottomanrule.17 In this context, a single state gendarmerie came to police the entire country.

One Gendarmerie, 19061920Under Law PE/1906, the Chorofylake became a single state police force, whosejurisdiction extended to the whole territory of Greece. The structure of the force createdby the reform of 1906, and by the subsequent Law OZ/1910 remained essentiallyunchanged for the largest part of the twentieth century. National police forces, gener-ally, and gendarmeries, in particular, had a notorious history for backing conservative,right-wing or monarchist governments.18

In the fourteen years of a single military gendarmerie for Greece, the Chorofylakeproved themselves to be no exception. In 19161917, the Chorofylake sided with themonarchy against elected liberals and supporters of Venizelos who wanted to join theEntente during the First World War (King Konstantinos favoured neutrality). WhenVenizelos took control of liberated Thessaloniki, his supporters were terrorized inAthens where the Chorofylake did nothing to stop the violence (Leontaritis 1978b: 42).Venizelos then set about purging 3,000 officers of the force when he retook control ofAthens in 1917. However, in 1920, in what was becoming a commonplace practice,Army officers and Chorofylakes loyal to Konstantinos were reinstated when themonarchist United Opposition came to power.

The Chorofylake participated actively in various military assignments in the twentiethcentury. The force fought as part of the Army, carrying out military police duties andholding prisoners of war during the Balkan Wars of 19121913, the First World War,the Greek Campaign of Asia Minor and the war with Italy and Germany in 19401941.It also fought in operations of the Greek Civil War in the period from 1946 to 1949.According to sympathetic police historians, the Chorofylake proved its valour in everyGreek war effort (Daskalakis 1973: 5870) but more importantly, Greeces numerous

16 Greece was being penalized for its relentless expansionist campaigns against the Ottoman Empire.17 Revolution in Crete had also recommenced in 1895, and by 1898 the Greek island became an autonomous

state under the supervision of Britain, France, Russia and Italy. A Greek expeditionary force, dispatched in 1896,also partly led to border clashes in 1897 in northern Greece.

18 When Louis Napoleon successfully carried out his coup detat in December 1851, he relied heavily onthe gendarmes in Paris. They assisted in the seizure of the Ministry of the Interior and threw out ministers whoopposed the coup detat. Even after workers and peasants reassembled to restore the Republic, the gendarmeriesided with Napoleon, and joining with the Army, marched to the countryside to put down the popular revolt.The gendarmerie were lavished by their new emperor, who saw their role as central to the maintenance of thenew regime (Emsley 1999: 124125). A similar conservative political allegiance is to be found among the Italiancarabinieri, most recently evinced in reports of fascist tactics in Genoa during anti-globalization andanti-capitalist demonstrations. However, the best example of the resolute dedication of the carabinieri camein February 1834 when, according to the tradition of the corps, Giovanni Battista Scapaccino came across agroup of republican volunteers coming from Switzerland and France. When called upon to declare his allegianceto the republican cause, Scapaccino responded Long live the King! before being summarily executed. AsEmsley (1999: 193) puts it: after 1821 the loyalty of the Piedmontese Carabinieri to its monarch was neveragain in doubt, and the senior officers of the corps prided themselves on a personal bond between the Carabinieriand the king. Eventually, the Italian Government would become so concerned about the carabinieri that theycreated the Guardia di Pubblica Sicurreza on the supposed British model of a civilian police.


military campaigns and in particular the participation of the force in wars until 1920accelerated police reforms in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Due to its warinvolvement, the Chorofylake suffered consequences in its capacity to police civilianpopulations, especially in the cities.

After the Balkans War of 19121913, Greece expanded to the north, increasing itspopulation and adding the city of Thessaloniki. This put the Chorofylake undertremendous pressure. By 1910, it had already begun to supplement their ranks withconscripts, and all training ended under the pressure of replacing losses. The recruit-ment procedures that followed then undermined significantly the quality of policing inthe interior (Naskos 1932: 204; Daskalakis 1973: 53). In May 1919, Greece sent anexpeditionary force to Smyrne, Anatolia and by 1920, the Army had advanced into AsiaMinor. Greece had thus gained territories in eastern Thrace and Smyrne, but the militarycampaign took a tremendous toll on the Chorofylake who, given their depletedresources, were left unable to police the interior. Moreover, a major influx of Greeksbegan to move into the interior, and particularly the cities, as they left their homes toescape the destruction of the war front. This was only a forewarning of the massivemigration to come.

The Return of a City Police, 19201984Conditions pursuant to the Balkans War of 19121913, the First World War and thecampaign in Asia Minor forced major re-thinking on the Greek police system. In 1920,the Astynomia Poleon were introduced, and with them police organization in Greecereturned to a two-force system. According to census data, between 1907 and 1920, thepopulation of Athens and Piraeus almost doubled from 250,010 to 453,042. The secondlargest city in 1920 was Thessaloniki, with a population of 174,390. In 1907, 17.9 percent of the Greek population lived in cities of more than 10,000 people, while in 1920,this figure had risen to 23.5 per cent. Conditions in cities deteriorated rapidly during theFirst World War period and the construction industry could not respond to demands fornew housing. There were also shortages of food and other goods (Leontaritis 1978a:78).

In 1921, the Greek Army continued to advance past the frontier established afterWorld War I with Turkey, fighting its way to the outskirts of Ankara. The TurkishArmy counter-attacked and the Greeks were forced to retreat as the Turkish Army setSmyrne ablaze on 27 August. This Disaster in Asia Minor exacerbated the flight ofGreek refugees to the mainland. In 1922, approximately 2 million Greeks lived inwestern Asia Minor and about half a million of them in Smyrne. After the collapse ofthe front, over one million people were pushed toward the coast as the Turkish Armybegan to hunt down and massacre Greeks. About 750,000 Greeks fled to the islands andthe coast (Despotopoulos et al. 1978). In January 1923, Greece and Turkey signedprotocols on the exchange of populations, prisoners of war and hostages. Some 1.2million Greeks and 45,000 Armenians arrived in Greece. Of the 1.2 million refugees,about 370,000 moved to urban areas, especially Athens and its suburbs. As a result, thepopulation of Athens swelled to half a million in 1924 double its population only sixyears earlier. Large numbers also moved to Thessaloniki, although most Greeks settlingin Macedonia moved to rural areas (Veremis 1978). Apart from creating massiveurbanization, housing shortages, poverty and policing problems, these developments led


to the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, finalizing Greeces national borders19 and putting anend to the expansionist dream of a greater Greece under the Great Idea.

The developments after 1922, especially the large increase in urban populations afterthe flow of refugees from Asia Minor into the larger cities of continental Greece,reinforced the need for a special police force adapted to the conditions and particular-ities of life in the city. In 1914, Francesco Garigliotta, the leader of an Italian expeditionfor the re-organization of the Chorofylake, proposed the creation of a new police forcethat would specialize in the policing of cities. The engagement of Greece in the Balkanfront during World War I postponed any developments until 1918, when new legislationregarding the organization of the Chorofylake explicitly excluded five large cities fromits jurisdiction, and prescribed that a new force would be organized for the policing ofthese urban centres (Art. 12, Law 1370/1918). The Chorofylake would continue tooperate in these cities until the creation of the new force, and was to maintain its dutiespertaining to public security (i.e., the conduct of criminal investigation and powersconnected with judicial police). A 1919 British expedition of officers of the LondonMetropolitan Police under Sir Frederick Hallyday evaluated the situation in Greece andalso proposed the creation of a new professional police force, which would take overcompletely the policing duties of the Chorofylake in larger cities. This British proposaldiffered significantly from previously existing plans, essentially advocating the resto-ration of the 1849 Administrative Police. The proposal of the British expedition wasaccepted in its entirety, and, in 1920, Law 2461/1920 created the force of the AstynomiaPoleon (City Police).

The explanatory report of Law 2461/1920, as proposed to the Greek Parliament(quoted in Stamatis 1971: 102), explained that, while the duties and powers of the twobodies are identical and serve the same purpose, the methods and other details inexercising these duties are different, given discrepancies in living conditions and otherparticularities of larger cities versus life in smaller cities and rural communities.20Initially, Athens, Piraeus, Thessaloniki, Patrae and Corfu were to be policed by theAstynomia Poleon, as the first four were the largest cities as well as industrial andcommercial centres, and Corfu was the most important destination for tourists comingto Greece at that time (Stamatis 1971: 107). The 1918 statute prescribed that the newforce would be installed in each city, with the Chorofylake continuing to exercisepolicing duties in the interim (with the exception of Thessaloniki).21 The creation of theAstynomia Poleon followed precisely the guidelines of the British expedition, and tomake sure of their proper implementation, Hallyday was kept on as chief of the force.

For the first time since 1893, a Greek police force was not part of the Army but ratheran independent organization following its own special regulations. Its personnel were

19 With the exception of the Dodecanese Islands of the southwestern Aegean, which were integrated afterWorld War II.

20 The special training and general methods of the Chorofylake were deemed misaligned to the exercise ofurban policing duties because of the militarized character of this force and the extension of its jurisdiction inevery part of the Greek territory. Men of the Chorofylake underwent army training, and the conditions of servicealso included a system of frequent transfers. Officers in the lower ranks hardly served in the same city for morethan six months, thus it was virtually impossible for officers of the Chorofylake to become familiar with localconditions and needs, or even with the geography of a particular place. According to the report, this situationcompromised seriously the performance of the Chorofylake as a police force (Stamatis 1971: 103). Moreover,Choroflylake members regarded service in larger cities to be a financial burden because of the higher cost ofliving, and were thus less likely to welcome transfers.

21 This might have something to do with the citys proximity to the Turkish border and the perceived needto maintain a more militarized presence there, which they were more adept at providing.


TABLE I Comparison of wages

Astynomia Poleon (1920) Chorofylaki (1925)(in drachmas) (in drachmas)

Patrolman/private of the Chorofylaki 200 135Corporal (Chorofylaki only) n/a 150Sergeant 240 170Warrant Officer (Chorofylaki only) n/a 200Source: Art. 26, Law 2461/1920; Art. 43, Leg. Decree 27 October 1925.

recruited through a special selection procedure and underwent police training: allofficers serving with the Astynomia Poleon were expected to develop into careerprofessionals, capable of exercising policing as scientifically and methodically astheir model police, the London Metropolitan Police (Stamatis 1971: 101). For thispurpose (and this was a major novelty at the time), the new force organized its owntraining facilities and developed its own training courses. The first school for policeofficers of the Astynomia Poleon was established in the city of Corfu, which was thefirst city taken over by the force in October 1921 (Stamatis 1971: 107; Kampanakis1997: 21).22 The minimum monthly wage of officers serving with the Chorofylake andthose of the Astynomia Poleon were differentiated by law. In an attempt to compensateofficers adequately for serving with the new city police, a separate pay structure wasdevised (see Table I). Although the Astynomia Poleon was evidently designed to be aprofessional urban police force, during the 1920s there was some uncertainty regardingits jurisdiction and powers. Finally, Law 3754/1929 clarified that the Chorofylake wasto remain in the city of Thessaloniki, but the Astynomia Poleon would operate in theother four cities, according to the original British plan.23

A particular problem connected with the Chorofylake and the Astynomia Poleon, aswell with the other state security agencies since the 1930s and especially in thepost-Civil War period, was its continuous and active engagement in the politicalpolicing of the Greek population. This engagement had been a direct consequence ofinstitutional, and even constitutional, arrangements that allowed continuous surveillanceand suppression of individuals and organizations (political or other) connected with, orfriendly to, the Greek Communist Party. The first sanctioned persecution of communistsbegan with General Theodoros Pangalos in 1925 and was enshrined in law (No.4229/1929)24 by Liberal Prime Minister Venizelos, who stated in his announcement toreturn to public life: It is my duty to assume my position as leader of the party which

22 Recruits were required to complete successfully a six-month training course, followed by a probationaryperiod (Art. 9, Law 2461/1920). This statute also raised some obstacles to the transfer of personnel of lowerranks from the Chorofylake to the new force, thus making clear that it was going to develop its own standardsindependently.

23 The stabilization of the position and role of the Astynomia Poleon had been a predictable development,because the service had already entrenched itself bureaucratically and created a remarkable infrastructure,including motorized services, records and laboratories. The Astynomia Poleon is connected to severalinnovations in Greek policing after World War II, such as the operation of the first telecommunication centreand radio car patrols (the 100 service).

24 The law prescribed a sentence of at least six months imprisonment for any person found guilty of actingtoward the implementation of ideas obviously aiming at the subversion of the current social system throughviolent means. It also prescribed a procedure for the dissolution of communist unions or associations, as wellas special provisions for the persecution of public servants and military officers friendly to subversive ideas(Economou 1978).


is the main fortress against dictatorship and social turbulence (Economou 1978:311).

Venizelos anti-communist stance did not save him from monarchist and ultra-right-ists who plotted a coup detat in March 1933, or save him from an assassination attemptin June following a parliamentary majority. During the events of March 1933, theChorofylake and Army played an active role in impeding democratically electedofficials from taking office. As a result, 45 commissioned officers were discharged inJanuary 1934. Perhaps even more disturbing, the investigation into the assassinationattempt against Venizelos revealed that officers of the Astynomia Poleon (who werearrested almost immediately) were part of a conspiracy with a known bandit and aconservative Member of Parliament (Economou 1978: 324). The institutional founda-tions for practices of political policing had been firmly laid during the period of theMetaxas dictatorship (19361941), when the police had been given extensive powers tokeep under surveillance, and actively control, individuals who either had any connec-tion to the Communist Party or engaged in any activities regarded by the governmentas subversive. These powers included prolonged detention and even banishment ofthese individuals without any judicial authorization or decision. The police, by employ-ing a network of informers, would require from suspected persons the submission ofstatements of redemption about prior activities or expressed views (Alivizatos 1986:436).25

During the Civil War, and in the post-Civil War era, anti-communism became a basiccomponent of state ideology. These powers not only continued to be exercised by thepolice, but were intensified as surveillance and suppression was legitimized by thepolitical system and institutionalized through constitutional arrangements (Alivizatos1986: 536). The incident at Meligala, Messinia on 1113 September 1944, in whichcommunist EAM-ELAS (National Liberation Front Greek Peoples Liberation Army)andartes overran a detachment of Chorofylake and Security Battalion men and proceedto slaughter them, is one important example of the hatred and bitterness on the part ofrevolutionaries toward the Chorofylake for their active role in suppressing communism especially when the Gendarmes cooperated with German-equipped Security Battal-ions, originally organized as armed collaborators during the Nazi occupation.26

25 On 89 May 1936, there were clashes between the police and striking workers in the city of Thessaloniki.The Chorofylake used cavalry and armoured vehicles to disperse the crowd, and as a result, 12 died and 32were wounded. As there was an imminent danger of riots, the Army was ordered to police the city. IoannisMetaxas exploited the incident politically by stating that the riots were the general rehearsal for a communistrevolution. In the following period, at least 35 individuals were banished for their participation in the strike(Koliopoulos 1978). The day before the national strike of 5 August 1936, Metaxas, with the approval of theKing, issued several decrees under which Parliament was dissolved for an indefinite period of time and severerestrictions were imposed on civil liberties, including freedom of association and freedom of the press. Inaddition, the requirement of a warrant for arrest was abolished. The reasons for these measures were the expectedserious breach of the public order and the communist threat. The Metaxas regime is known as the Regimeof the 4th of August. The Metaxas Government attempted to impose a fascist-type rule, with ideologicalreferences to notions such as the New National State and the Third Greek Civilization. The regime imposeddraconian censorship on the press and intensified the persecution of communists. Law 117/1936 introduced evenharsher policies and sentences against communists than the previous Law 4229/1929. The duration ofbanishment, which could be applied by the police alone, was set from 6 months to 2 years. The regime alsocreated a special Sub-Ministry of Security. According to official data, about 50,000 people were arrested, andabout 47,000 submitted statements of repentance to the authorities. Koliopoulos (1978) suggests that thesenumbers are exaggerated because the Communist Party only had 15,000 members in 1935 (see also Alivizatos1986).

26 These Security Battalions comprised about 20,000 men in September 1944, and regularly cooperatedwith the Chorofylake in operations against the EAM-ELAS (Daskalakis 1973). As a result, operations of the


By 1947, clashes between the Army and communist groups escalated into full civilwar. Controversial Law 509/1947 was issued, according to which the Communist Partyand its organizations, including EAM, were outlawed. The law prescribed the deathpenalty to anyone guilty of aiming to subvert the government. It is interesting to notethat in the summer of 1946, the government of Tsaldaris relieved the Chorofylake ofmilitary duties against the communists and gave this task to the Army and NationalGuard. Once the domestic situation in Greece had escalated into full civil war, theChorofylake were found to be lacking in training and equipment for such tasks.

Nonetheless, the intense antipathy towards the Chorofylake by the Left began tochange only after the fall of the military junta in 1974, when under the new Constitutionof the 1975 Karamanlis Government, the activities of the Greek Communist Party(KKE) were proclaimed legal. It was only after this point that a sense of normality inthe political life of Greece began to emerge. In 1981, a popular socialist prime minister,Andreas Papandreou, came to power and one of his partys first tasks was governmentrestructuring, including especially the police.

THE 1984 AMALGAMATION: A CHANGE IN THE RELATION BETWEENSOCIETY AND STATE

Only ten years after the military junta, the invasion of Cyprus by Turkey and the returnof democracy in 1974, the Greek Government sought to reorganize the police one moretime. For the Astynomia Poleon, this marked another structural transformation in a longhistory of successive changes since liberation. For the Chorofylake, it marked an end tothe Gendarmeries 151 years of uninterrupted service. Still shaking off the dust of abrutal civil war, political unrest and a recent military dictatorship, there were amplereasons to wrest control of internal security out of the hands of a police elite loyal tothe Right and into a reorganized Ministry of Public Order. Moreover, one way tocontinue to heal the wounds of political fractiousness and ideological stalemate betweenRight and Left was to do away with structures historically linked to partisanship.Although some would consider the changes (in particular the re-naming of the force) tohave been largely cosmetic, this would surely underestimate the weight of the ideologi-cal baggage still associated with the histories of the Astynomia Poleon and Chorofylakeamong both the Right and Left in Greek political circles. Moreover, the intensepartisanship and relatively poor training and professionalism of the forces led to thepolitical assumption that a name change and restructuring could aid in the process ofstate legitimacy and would fall in step with the socialists basic 1981 electoral platformof allaghi (change).

In 1984, the Chorofylake and the Astynomia Poleon were amalgamated into a newpolice force, the Helleniki Astynomia (Greek Police), which was to operate as part ofthe new Ministry of Public Order. Papandreous socialist Panhellenic Socialist Move-EAM-ELAS also targeted police forces. A characteristic example is the fighting in Meligala, Messinia on 1113September 1944, when the local Security Battalion and the local Chorofylake were overrun and brutallyslaughtered by the EAM-ELAS. The description of these events varies significantly according to the politicalposition of the historian. Conventional police historians and histories written before 1974 usually glorify therole of the police and Security Battalions in clashes against communist formations (Daskalakis 1973;Headquarters of the Astynomia Poleon 1971). The same attitude is unanimously visible in parliamentarydiscussions during the period of the Civil War and thereafter (Hellenic-Parliament 1946). On the other hand,communist and other left-wing writers normally present these incidents as patriotic actions againstcollaborators (e.g., Tsoukalas 1981).


ment (PASOK) Government advocated the reform in both political and operationalterms, amid much controversy. The explanatory report of Law 1481/1984(Organization of the Ministry of Public Order) to the Greek Parliament focusedheavily on the expected operational benefits from the abolition of the multiple policeforce system. At the same time, however, the Government made absolutely clear thatthe new legislation aimed at the materialization of a political project as well: thedemocratization of the police, which was intended to serve as means toward a changein the relation between Society and State (Ministry of Public Order 1984: 1). Thereorganization of the Greek police was seen as a political necessity, toward the goal oftransforming them into a genuine social service and a mechanism of support of popularsovereignty (Ministry of Public Order 1984: 1). Thus, the expected operational benefitswere presented as intermediate stages toward the achievement of this strategic plan.27

The governmental logic deployed was largely based on the alleged ineffectiveness ofthe police, even though at that time the number of serving officers was about 44,000 fora population of slightly less than 10 million, making the officer/citizen ratio among thehighest in the Western world.28 The new force retained the militarized structure andcharacter of the Chorofylake, which was therefore generalized to all Greek police (theAstynomia Poleon had always been a civil force). The preservation of military structureand disciplinary code was deemed necessary given that the explanatory report andproposed bill defined the mission of the police as a war on crime. Perhaps even moreimportantly, the direct analogy to the Army invoked effectiveness and attempted drawattention away from the graft and corruption often associated with public office andpolicing in Greece. The Army is one of the few departments of the state that is generallyheld in high regard. Thus, the Minister argued:

Special organization firstly means that police units are capable of undertaking operations against thecriminal or those disrupting the public order, operations similar to those undertaken by the Armyagainst the enemy. It also means that the services and the personnel are equipped with appropriatemeans (weapons, machinery, vehicles, communications) for the execution of these operations. Finallyit means that the police officers are trained and commanded with special hierarchical subordinationand disciplinary rules, so that they are capable of fighting the daily battles, which constitute thiscontinuous war. (Ministry of Public Order 1984: 3, translated from Greek)

27 The reform was aimed at five general objectives: (1) To limit the activities of the police in policing andthe protection of public order. As the police had been the only public service working virtually 24 hours a dayand covering the whole territory, it had gradually transformed into the front desk of most administrative services:thus the police were authorized to issue certificates, licenses, permits and other documents that bore no particularrelation to the issue of public order or security. The Government regarded this development as pathology onnot only administrative but also political grounds, as it resulted in continuous surveillance of the social andprivate lives of the citizens. (2) To help improve the relation of the public and the police. The prolonged useof police coercion had resulted in mistrust and enmity between the police and the public. (3) To increase theproductivity of the police officers. (4) To deal effectively with increasing crime rates and, particularly, the newforms of criminal behaviour. (5) To enhance the education and training of police officers, as well as their workingconditions (Ministry of Public Order 1984: 1).

28 The reasons brought forward by the Governments explanatory report were: (1) the division of policepersonnel in many police forces; (2) the complicated command structure for frontline units; (3) theover-expansion of staff formations (i.e., the central services of both forces); (4) the scattering of frontlinepersonnel into many small units; (5) the lack of a single service responsible for civil defence (i.e., interventionin emergency situations such as natural disasters the Fire Brigade is such a service in Greece); (6) the variationin the organization of police services; (7) the unbalanced distribution of personnel; (8) the multiple levels inthe chain of command; (9) the outdated legislative framework; (10) the undemocratic [sic] and outdated methodsof police work; (11) the multiple centres of command; (12) the assignment to police officers of a variety ofgeneral administrative tasks that did not constitute police work; (13) the limited use of automated systems; (14)the low educational level of police officers; (15) the high number of commissioned officers compared to thenumber of rank-and-file; (16) the low quality of police training; and, (17) the partisan mentality of the police(Ministry of Public Order 1984: 1).


The organization of the new police was divided into four branches: Public Order,Public Security, Civil Defense and Logistics. (This structure has not changedsignificantly since the 2000 reform and introduction of a headquarters for the HellinikiAstynomia.) The compartmentalization was expected to result in higher specializationand, therefore, in a significant improvement in efficiency.29 Of course, the reforms weremet with fierce criticism by both the conservative opposition and the Communist Party.It also caused considerable skepticism among police officers, as the bill brought aboutseveral changes in the system of promotions. During the parliamentary debate on theproposed bill, the conservative opposition argued that the reform had been ill-preparedand that the government sought parliamentary affirmation of its plans without allowingadequate time for consultation and debate (Hellenic Parliament 1984: 1327).30 SomeConservative Members of Parliament even reported signs of severe discontent amongthe police officers and alleged that these reactions had led the government to minimizeconsultation (Hellenic Parliament 1984: 13351336).

Another ground for criticism was the integration of all police forces into theorganization of the Ministry of Public Order. The Opposition feared that this develop-ment would increase the Governments capability of controlling police leaders bypromoting officers to the highest ranks on partisan grounds. As a result, the Governmentwould have been able to manipulate the police as a whole. In any case, since theamalgamation of the forces, special measures have been taken to assuage publicfears of partisanship and build a professional and politically detached nationallaw enforcement agency. These measures include the creation and support ofspecialized recruit selection and training academies for commissioned31 and non-

29 After the 2000 reform, Art. 15 of Law 2800/2000 provided for the creation of a police committee in thecapital city of each prefecture, which is composed of the Public Prosecutor at the Court of Misdemeanors, ashead, and the Police Director and other representatives of the local authorities, as members. In theory, thesecommittees are designed to facilitate the localization of police services in the territory of each prefecture. Theirdecisions, however, do not seem to be binding for the local police.

30 The fact that the bill had been introduced to the summer session of the Hellenic Parliament added weightto this argument. It was known that the Government had planned the reform at least since the beginning of 1984,but the proposed reform was not made public until virtually the last moment. It was expected that the projectwould cause acute political debate. Therefore, the introduction of the bill was preceded by minimal consultation.

31 Commissioned officers of the Helleniki Astynomia are graduates of the School of Commissioned Officersof the Police Academy. This is also the case for officers who served in the pre-existing police forces before1984, as those forces maintained similar special schools. Exceptionally, commissioned officers may, underspecial provisions, originate from the ranks of Police Sergeants or Warrant Officers. Officers belonging to thiscategory may be promoted only up to the rank of Police Captain A (Art. 38 of Presidential Decree 24/1997),and commissioned officers who graduated from the School of Commissioned Officers are always senior in rankto those promoted by special procedure (Art. 5 of Presidential Decree 24/1997). Therefore, the higher ranksare occupied exclusively by regular commissioned officers. Clearly, this system can be understood to be theproduct of tradition, as there was always a clear split between commissioned and non-commissioned officersin both the Chorofylake and the Astynomia Poleon (Kampanakis 1997: 20; Stamatis 1971). Recruitmentprocedures, until 1994, were exclusively organized and controlled by the forces themselves. Special schoolsfor police officers were organized and operated by each force, and, after 1984, by the Helleniki Astynomia. Underthese arrangements, any person wishing to join the police had to pass a special examination (organized on ayearly basis) before being admitted to the police school. The problem with this procedure was the lack of anyguarantee of objectivity in the assessment of candidates; there was much room for partisan influences on thefinal outcome of the examination: there were even accusations that the outcome of some examinations,especially of examinations for admission to schools for patrolmen for which qualifications for admission weregenerally of lower standard, was fixed (Zianikas 1990). The system of special examinations did not change withthe advent of the Helleniki Astynomia, although under the reform of 1984 all police training services came underthe supervision of a single agency: the Police Academy (Kampanakis 1997: 23). Law 2226/1994 introduceda radical re-organization of the recruitment procedure in order to establish adequate levels of objectivity in theselection of all police personnel. Under the current system introduced by that statute, those wishing to join either


commissioned32 officers, and special review of applicants for higher commissionedranks.33 These fears were nonetheless very visible in the long parliamentary debate onthe bill (Hellenic Parliament 1984: 1331, 1335, 1345). Of course, Greek police forceshad been vulnerable to political interventions through the selection of police leaders andgeneral staff in the past. However, given the general targets of these political ap-pointees, the Conservative Right had much less to fear than their communist or socialistrevolutionary colleagues in Parliament.

The Oppositions final criticism was based on tradition. The reform, they argued, wasbound to eliminate a certain esprit de corps, which had been cultivated in both forcesfor decades. The differences in the culture of the two forces would undermine theproject of a single police force, thus leading to an immediate and considerabledeterioration in the quality of policing. In addition, the Opposition suggested that theofficers of the Astynomia Poleon, who served only in a few cities, could, after thereform be transferred to a completely different social and operational environment, thussuffering considerable consequences in their personal and family lives. The bill,however, included a transitional provision for officers of the Astynomia Poleon, and inthe end, this did not create notable problems when the reform was implemented. TheLefts opposition was largely based on similar fears but also dredged up recollectionsof what a large militarized policing agency had meant for communists in the past. When

Footnote continuedas commissioned officers or patrolmen are selected by means of the national competitive examination, whoseresults determine admission to university-level education. A slight change since 1994 is that the examinationis now an integral part of graduation from high school; its result determines the mark of the high schoolgraduation degree, a system very reminiscent of the French baccalaureat degree examination. High schoolstudents submit a uniform application stating their university department of preference; the Schools of the PoliceAcademy are included in the list of possible choices and, therefore, candidates who have the best graduatingmark and selected the Schools of the Police as their first choice (or among their top choices) qualify foradmission. Problems of objectivity are instantly solved through this procedure. Moreover, the problem ofcandidate quality is solved through the mechanism of supply-and-demand that is inherent in this system.

32 The class of non-commissioned officers of the Helleniki Astynomia includes officers of the following ranks(from lower to higher): (a) patrolman (astyfylakas), (b) police sergeant (archifylakas), and (c) Police WarrantOfficer. These days, they are graduates of the School of Patrolmen of the Police Academy. Between 1985 and1994, until the Police Academy was reorganized and the recruitment procedures changed, the HellenikiAstynomia operated a special school for the training of Police Sergeants. Older forces also maintained specialschools for the training of personnel of lower ranks. After the 1994 reform in the system of recruitment, entryinto non-commissioned ranks is possible by means of the general examinations organized for admission touniversity education. The number of officers to be admitted varies with each year, and there is a quota on thenumber of women who may be admitted: the ratio is actually prescribed by the law and is 80 per cent men to20 per cent women. Candidates must be less than 26 years of age, and must satisfy height and bodily structurerequirements. They must also pass medical and physical tests. The period of study in the School of Patrolmenis five semesters, after which successful graduates are appointed to police units.

33 The law sets periods of mandatory service in each rank. Major Generals, however, are not subject to theserestrictions because they form (together with serving Lieutenant Generals) the personnel pool from which alltop appointments of the police are selected. The Chief of the Helleniki Astynomia is appointed by theGovernment, specifically the Governmental Council of Foreign Policy and National Defense (KYSEA), andany officer holding the rank of Major General or Lieutenant General can be selected for this position. TheCouncil enjoys absolute freedom in making their selection, and if a Major General is selected, he is promotedto the rank of Lieutenant General. Officers more senior in rank than him are automatically discharged fromservice. There are internal councils of assessment for the assessment and appointment of other officers thatoperate with different composition according to the rank of the police officer under assessment. These councilsbase their decisions on partial assessments of each officer effected by the officer in command of the unit in whichthe officer serves (Art. 22 of Presidential Decree 24/1997). The law organizes a system based on the so-calledability reports submitted regularly each year. Officers are assessed on a scale of 110 (low to high) for theirabilities, skills, knowledge and general attitude toward the service. Promotion may not be based exclusivelyon merit, but also on seniority. However, if an officer receives bad marks, the Council may decide to dischargehim from the force.


the Conservative Party (ND) came into power again in 1990, the new single police forcehad been operating for six years. The tense atmosphere of the 1984 parliamentarydebate left no mark on conservative policies; and at no time was there any intention ofrecreating the multiple police force system.

While some of the core arguments for the 1984 amalgamation followed neo-liberalrhetoric of avoiding complicated command structures, unbalanced distribution andmultiple levels of staff formations, the post-1984 period has seen an overall expan-sion rather than retrenchment of public policing staff strength in Greece. Previousstatistical reports of Greek policing (see DeWaard 1999) have underreported actualstrength because respondents sent in statistics on frontline officers only. Table IIdemonstrates that the number of total police personnel (excluding civilians) per 100,000population in Greece has climbed steadily from 1995 to 2002 from 403.8 to 489.0 a21 per cent increase. When one examines authorized strength numbers (which do notnecessarily reflect actual strength), the Greek government has statutorily authorized a16.5 per cent overall increase from 1984 to 2000 (see Table III), which in terms ofauthorized strength per 100,000 population translates into an increase of 9.3 per cent:from 388.9 to 425.1 officers.

In terms of the national budget spent on policing, there was spike in 1985 followingamalgamation to over 3.6 per cent, then gradually decreasing to less than 1.5 per centin 1996 and then rising again up to 2001 at over 2 per cent of the budget (see Figure1). From 1987 to 2001, public policing has rather consistently absorbed between 1.5 to2 per cent of the annual budget.

The reported size of the Greek private security sector (which we will discuss in moredetail later) has also been grossly underreported as no available survey had ever beenundertaken before 2001 and researchers were forced to rely on best guesses. Pursuant

TABLE II Police personnel per 100,000 population

Year Police Border Guards Special Guards Total Police:100K

1995 42,178 42,178 403.51996 43,950 43,950 419.51997 44,183 44,183 420.81998 45,389 45,389 431.61999 45,840 2,178 963 48,981 464.82000 45,565 3,200 2,316 51,081 484.02001 45,238 4,127 2,293 51,658 489.02002 45,215 4,126 2,293 51,634*

*Data up to 2 July 2002.Source: Ministry of Public Order 2002.

TABLE III Authorized strength for Greek police forces

Astynomia HellinikiYear Chorofylake Poleon Astynomia Total Police:100K1956 19,285 6,988 26,273 327.11966 22,391 9,030 31,421 364.81973 22,518 9,777 32,295 361.71984 38,482 38,482 388.92000 44,815 44,815 425.1

Source: various Presidential Decrees.


FIGURE 1 Spending on policing as a percentage of the national budget.

to Greek law, security firms were required to register with the Ministry of Public Orderin 1997. For 2001, 674 companies or franchise offices registered as contract privatesecurity services, reporting a total of 18,769 personnel or 177.6 officers per 100,000population. This figure does not include inhouse security staff. Thus, the ratio of publicofficers to contract private security agents is 0.363, or 2.751 for Greece in 2001. Thisis much different than interpolations for English-speaking countries such as Canada(12, see Swol 2000; Saunders 2003; DeWaard 1999), the United States (13, seeCunningham et al. 2000; Bureau of Labour Statistics 2000; DeWaard 1999); Australia(12, see DeWaard 1999) and even South Africa, which all have at least twice asmany private security officers than public police.

On the face of it, therefore, the modern organization of Greek public policing istoward public growth, militarization,34 centralization and rather consistent public invest-ment. However, as we will explore in the next section, there are also countervailingtrends and recent developments in Greek policing (both public and private) that hint atchanges on the horizon with the potential to undo this status quo.

THE FUTURE OF GREEK POLICING

Prognostications about the future of policing are now commonplace in the academicliterature (Bayley and Shearing 1996; Johnston 2002; Jones and Newburn 1998). Thisis in no small part due to the fact that rather profound transformations have been takingplace in the delivery of security in Western democracies (see, e.g., Rigakos 2002a;

34 This is meant in terms of actual hierarchy; the ideological appeal of the perceived efficiency of the militarybeing used as a metaphorical reference and a framework for the new Helleniki Astynomia. Moreover, as in thecase of basic military service, both commissioned and non-commissioned personnel are still required to dofrontline service in either remote or frontier units: in the case of patrolmen, this could be either in the GeneralDirectorates of Attiki (Athens) or Thessaloniki or in units of Police Directorates along the northern and easternborder (Florina, Kastorina, Orestiada) or in Police Directorates in the Aegean Islands.


Ericson and Haggerty 1997; Marx 1987; OMalley 1996; Shearing 1987; Sheptycki2000). Perhaps the most important of these transformations has been the increasingnumber of persons employed in private security firms in North America (Shearing 1980;Cunningham et al. 1990; Kakalik 1971; Swol 1999). The crux of these writings hasbeen aimed at analyzing the decreasing involvement of the state in direct securityprovision and the increasing role played by an array of other public, private andquasi-public policing bodies. These trends, of course, have been more amplified inNorth America, northern Europe and South Africa than in other nations (DeWaard1999; Jones and Newburn 1998), and as we have seen, do not seem to apply todevelopments in Greece.

Despite concerted efforts in the almost three decades since the junta including thespectacular recent successes of Greeces anti-terrorism squad against the November 17organization the Greek state and Greek policing continue to fight an uphill battleagainst public perception.35 Of course, popular opinion usually lags behind institutionalchange,36 and it may take another generation before the impact of the 1984 reforms andsubsequent structural adjustments in 2000 will be measurable. State and police effec-tiveness continues to be an issue in Greece, with episodic failures of the HellenikiAstynomia becoming frontpage news (see, e.g., Ta Nea 2001: 11; Ta Nea 1999: 16).While the historic tendency to answer perceived threats to Greek sovereignty and publicorder with state expansion has actually accelerated in contemporary democratic Greece,there is evidence to suggest that the most recent expansion in the Helleniki Astynomiahas been conditioned by neo-liberal or post-Keynesian thinking. Moreover, two otherprofound and interlinked developments have propelled changes in policing: the upcom-ing 2004 Olympics, and the hunting down of one of Europes most notorious terroristorganizations. In this final section, we also consider the emergence of two specializedservices within the gamut of the Helleniki Astynomia: the Synoriaki Fylakes (BorderGuards) and the Eidiki Frouri (Special Guards) introduced in 1998 and 1999, respect-ively. These special police services, while employed within the Helleniki Astynomia andunder the Ministry of Public Order, are very much distinct forces with specialized termsof service, recruiting and uniforming. Further developments in Greek policing are there-emergence, at least formally, of municipal law enforcement and the very recent, yetrelatively diminutive, growth of private security.

Border Guards and Special Guards: A Neo-liberal Solution?In response to a dramatic increase in the flow of illegal immigrants to Greece in thewake of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and Greeces entry into the Eurozone, theBorder Guard Service was created in 1998. Its mission is the prevention of unlawfulentry into Greece by aliens, their detention and arrest for prosecution, and their

35 In an international survey based on some 314 economic and political criteria and a poll of 3,532 executives,Greece ranked 28 out of 30 OECD countries on government efficiency (i.e., in unabashed global-capitalistparlance: the extent to which government policies are conducive to competition; IMD 2002). A morenon-ideological measure is the corruption perceptions index put together by Transparency International. In2001, Greece scored 4.2 out of 10 on the index, placing the country 24 out of 30 OECD countries. In the WorldEconomic Forums 1997 international poll of capitalists and managers, Greece scored last among the EuropeanUnion nations on the effectiveness of its police (World Economic Forum 1997).

36 Although it will be interesting to see how this perception will change after the arrest of over a dozenNovember 17 terrorists during the writing of this article. In the groups 27-year history, they have beenresponsible for over 28 murders, and none of the organizations members have ever been caught or arrested.


re-forwarding (i.e., expulsion) as well as the prosecution of any persons aiding in theentry of illegal immigrants. The Border Guard service consists of a central (coordinat-ing) unit at the Ministry of Public Order and several Border Guard departments attachedto Police Directorates, whose jurisdiction includes areas of the Greek border withAlbania, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey there are also departments operating on theisland of Corfu (Kerkyra), which is close to the Albanian coastline.37

The Border Guards constitute a special category of personnel in the Ministry ofPublic Order (as specifically described by Art. 2, Para. 2 of Law 2622/1998). They havethe status of police officers (as defined in Art. 3 of Law 1481/1984) and are uniformed,armed and subject to military-type discipline as prescribed by police regulations.However, their uniform and equipment differ from the regular police officers of theHelleniki Astynomia. In fact, their appearance is much closer to soldiers than policeofficers. Most importantly, a Border Guards status in the service is equivalent to thatof a patrolman, but they are different in that they cannot be promoted, and in case ofa serious disciplinary infraction, are fired rather than suspended or dismissed fromservice (Art. 4, Paras. 3, 5, and 7 of Law 2622/1998).

There are other important differences between Border Guards and officers of theHelleniki Astynomia. First, Border Guards must possess particular physical abilities andbody structure, which by law excludes many women from applying in fact, a ratio of9 men to every woman is prescribed for the make-up of the force (Art. 3, Para. 1 of Law2622/1998). Second, males must have fulfilled their national military obligation andmust be less than 32 years of age, while females must be no more than 26. A thirdrequirement is that candidates must have been residents of the area of operation of aBorder Guard Department either for the last two years before applying or from birthuntil the completion of their eighteenth year and they must be high school graduates.Finally, male applicants who served in the Armys Special Forces (e.g., the Marines)and female applicants who know how to type or operate a computer are preferred toothers. Also, applicants who speak a foreign language or possess a drivers license arealso given priority.38

Despite all of these differences, the most notable disparity between the BorderGuards and regular patrolman of the Helleniki Astynomia is that the former are hired onfive-year renewable contracts and are not considered full-time employees of the public

37 Each Department is commanded by a Police Captain A or B (i.e., First or Second Class), who performsthe usual duties of any commander of a Helleniki Astynomia Department. He also serves as a link between thepolice and local and military authorities in the area, and coordinates multi-agency efforts toward the preventionof unlawful entry by aliens (Art. 6 of Presidential Decree 310/1998). The law says nothing specific about thecharacter and content of these multi-agency efforts so much relies on how the police perceive the situation ina specific area, and on the willingness of authorities to work together. As the police are exclusively authorizedto deal with illegal immigrants, the initiative lies with them. However, in sectors controlled by the Army, thepolice are required by law to report their entrance and movement to Army authorities. The role of localauthorities remains ambiguous. The rest of the command struc

The Political Economy of Greek Policing- Between Neo-liberalism and the Sovereign State

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