The Political Economy of Greek Policing

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
i
Department of Law, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada; iiSchool of Law, University of

Edinburgh, UK
(Received October 2002; In final form February 2003)
This article interrogates historical developments, modern structures and future trends in Greek policing from
the viewpoint of contemporary neo-liberal policing and social theory. We argue throughout this article that
although neo-liberal thinking has indeed recently crept into the rhetoric and logics of Greek governance, the
particular social, geographical and political history of the Hellenic Republic has muted these tendencies
significantly 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 both
physically in the material military security of its borders and vast coastline, and ideologically in the battle
for establishing public trust in the efficiency and effectiveness of government. This article analyzes relevant
statutes 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 maxim
that the provision of policing is fragmenting and de-centring as the state is shrinking, there are more and
more examples of the recrudescence, re-emergence and continuing central relevance of the state for security
provision in other national contexts.
Keywords: Greek police; Political economy; Neo-liberalism
This article is concerned with analyzing the historical development and modern
organization of public and private policing in Greece. While such an examination is
long overdue simply in terms of providing basic descriptive information in the English
language, the purpose is more importantly to make sense of this history and organization in the context of existing policing theory. As others have observed (e.g., DeWaard
1999; Johnston 1992), in many cases theorizing about the contemporary configuration
and future direction of policing (both public and private) has often outpaced the
collection of basic statistical, historical and other empirical data.
In the case of Greek policing, previously published data have been unreliable, which
can lead to erroneous conclusions about the national state of affairs relative to other
nations.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, 1125
Colonel 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 states
in a later section of this article.
ISSN 1043-9463 print/ISSN 1477-2728 online/03/030271-34 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1043946032000102898
272
G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU
organization and future direction in an era of increasing globalization and neo-liberal

ideology is a limit to contemporary theorizing about police, capital and governance.2
While Greece is a state well ensconced within contemporary international military,
economic and political organizations, its historical development and contemporary
geopolitical 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 1974
Turkish invasion of Cyprus3 and is still one of the few remaining Western nations to
have mandatory military service for men. At first glance, therefore, the potential role of
the state in contemporary Greece seems more salient and fundamental than for other
nations. However, there is nothing that immediately follows from the fact that Greece
is a more militarized nation4 that would necessitate the presence of either more or less
police, be they public or private. In fact, equally defensible hypotheses could be
mustered 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 and
neo-liberal ideology in shaping the organization of government and policing. It is
organized into three major parts, each dealing in turn with the past, present and future
of Greek policing.5 The first part addresses the historical formation and deployment of
the Greek police, both city and national, from Ottoman rule until 1984. We divide this
history into four general periods specifically dealing with police organizational change
and with reference to the influence of foreign policing models, political economy and
Greeces 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 turn
to describing the contemporary organization, context and relative size of Greek public
and private policing sectors after legislative changes in 1984. The final part attempts to
connect this history to current theorizing about the state, sovereignty and the future of
Greek policing.
We argue throughout this article that although neo-liberal thinking has recently crept
into the rhetoric and logics of Greek governance, the particular social, geographical and
political history of the Hellenic Republic has muted these tendencies significantly for
policing. A history of internal political strife, partisanship, civil war and revolution have
left a significant mark on the Greek police as successive governments since liberation
purged and reinstated officers on political grounds or deployed the Chorofylake
(National Gendarmerie) as political soldiers of the right. The culture and history of
Greek 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 entirely
Anglo-centric; drawing conclusions about policing trends in North America, Australia and Britain that may have
limited applicability elsewhere.
3
Presidential Decree 506/20 July 1974 Regarding General Mobilizations. The war stance had been a result
of the invasion of Cyprus by Turkey during the disastrous military junta of Colonel Papadopoulos that lasted
from 1968 to 1974. The reasons for dropping this formal war mobilization had much to do with problems relating
to the imposition of Military Penal Code sentences to convicted conscripts that were equal to those administered
in 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 and
Development (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%). Not
coincidentally, only Turkey (5.6%) spends a larger percentage of its GDP on the military (Central Intelligence
Agency 2002).
5
Because private security did not appear in any significant way in Greece until the late 1980s, we use
the term police instead of policing to describe most of the historical development of Hellenic security
provision.
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING
273
threats to its existence. 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 both physically in the material military security of
its borders and vast coastline, and ideologically in the battle for establishing public trust
in the efficiency and effectiveness of government.
Today, the Helleniki Astynomia (Greek Police) is actually growing in size, not
shrinking, and the private security sector is still very much in its infancy. Of course, this
does not deny that there have indeed been recent, and quite innovative, developments
in Greek policing that seek to extend the arm of the state while at the same time
minimizing its financial risk. These may also be interpreted as policies informed by
neo-liberal thinking, yet they differ considerably from developments in North America
and northern Europe. We conclude that, while it is tempting to point to Greece as an
exception to the general theoretical maxim that the provision of policing is fragmenting
and de-centring as the state is shrinking, there are more and more examples of the
recrudescence, re-emergence and continuing central relevance of the state for security
provision in other national contexts.
HISTORY
The history of the Greek police is invariably tied to the various arrangements of
the state after liberation from the Ottoman Empire, but the general formation, deployment and structure of the Chorofylake, at least structurally, remained largely resilient
to these changes right up to 1984. Successive governments have often had an
uneasy relationship with the Chorofylake, occasionally resulting in wholesale purges of
the 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 largely
unchanged since the inception of the force in 1833. This has been principally due to the
need for the maintenance of a militarized police presence in order to assist the army in
putting down successive waves of insurrection, to pacify countryside banditry and
suppress the revolutionary threat of communism. Moreover, the Chorofylakes were a
ready military force used to assert Greek sovereignty in newly acquired territories after
liberation, for the guarding and movement of prisoners of war during repeated military
campaigns and even the direct involvement of the force as a fighting contingent in
wartime.
While the Chorofylake managed to remain intact throughout the twentieth century,
Greek city policing underwent a number of significant transformations. The original
idea of locally funded municipal forces unraveled very quickly under the duress of
partisanship, economic scarcity, cronyism and lack of public confidence. By 1849, local
city policing in Athens and Piraeus had been transferred into the hands of the national
government and officers recruited directly by the state. Even after these changes, intense
partisanship often turned the municipal police into local political foot soldiers
eventually prompting the government in 1893 to transfer the administrative city police
under the control of the Army. This arrangement was also short-lived, and in 1906 the
city police were disbanded altogether. For fourteen years, between 1906 and 1920,
general police duties for urban centres in Greece fell under the control of the
Chorofylake, until the Astynomia Poleon (City Police) were organized. Here again,
however, the Astynomia Poleon remained a national agency, albeit separate and
274
specialized and with their own rank and pay structure apart from the Chorofylakes who
still 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 policing
from post-Ottoman rule to the present day can be characterized by the continuous
re-investment and entrenchment of the state, eventually culminating in the creation of
a single national force responsible for the whole country.
Ottoman Policing
The social and political organization of the Greek communities under Ottoman rule
directly benefited the potential for revolution. While the militia-type organization of
policing in this period bears little relation to that of the independent Greek state after
1830, these conditions influenced the formation and operation of early police bureaucracies. What is important to note about the organization of the Greek population under
Ottoman rule is the considerable autonomy that the local communities enjoyed. The
formation of these local communities dates back to the Byzantine era, and they survived
the Ottoman invasion and the upheaval it brought about in the region (Vakapopoulos
2001: 23, 2331, 77). Rather than hinder these relationships, the establishment of
Ottoman rule actually reinforced the development of the Greek self-governed local
communities.
In many ways, the social organization of these communities were very much different
from those ascribed to typical Western feudal societies (Filias 1996: 21; Malkidis 2001:
1314). The power relations in eastern agrarian communities produced a local elite
Christian/Greek aristocracy under the Ottoman regime of land ownership whose
accumulation of social power was tied to the exploitation of land.6 This system
constituted a hierarchy and was directly dependent on the power particularly the
military power of the higher Ottoman authority. Unlike the Western feudal model,
these relations did not depend on the local accumulation of power by the various
Ottoman 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 autonomous system of local government staffed and run by Greeks was developed and came
to exercise extensive administrative and judicial powers, including law enforcement and
the 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 ownership
that allowed the exploitation of land by Muslims or non-Muslims (Malkidis 2001: 1314). As a result, when
an area of state-owned land was liberated during the struggle for independence, the ownership passed to the
Greek state (Despotopoulos 1975: 609610). These lands were known as the National Lands. The issue of
whether they were going to be distributed to peasants constituted a major problem for most of the nineteenth
century, 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 by
means of military force. The territory of the local communities formed part of the Ottoman administrative
divisions, whose authorities were responsible for the enforcement of the Ottoman rule. The relevant divisions
here came at the lower part of the administrative hierarchy, and were: the sajak, headed by the sajak-bei, who
was the higher military, administrative and judicial Ottoman official; and the subdivision of the sajak, run by
the voevoda or soubassi, who primarily had the responsibility for collecting taxes and enforcing judicial
decisions. The voevoda was assisted by the bouloukbassi, who commanded an armed group and performed the
actual law enforcement duties (Troupakis 1904: 214).
275
recognizable pattern, even though regional variations existed (for a detailed description
of these variations, see Troupakis 1904: 219ff). A typical community would include the
Greek population of each city, village or island, the members of which would normally
elect annually a number of officials, known as the demogerontes (Troupakis 1904: 215;
Giannopoulos 1975: 137; Gardikas 1961: 8). These elected officials were normally
members of the wealthier and more powerful families that made up the local aristocracy. Under the system of local government, therefore, the social power of these
wealthier groups was also transformed into political power among the local populations
(Filias 1996: 23; Giannopoulos 1975: 138; Vournas 1997: 2). In turn, the demogerontes
would elect one person, the kotzambassis, who together with a local Ottoman official
were known as the proestoi they constituted the head of the local government and
were also responsible for the policing of the local population (Troupakis 1904: 216;
Gardikas 1961: 8; Vakalopoulos 2001: 78). For this purpose, smaller communities
could raise an armed group of 20 to 30 men to perform policing duties under the
command of the demogerontes.
The local proestoi normally had a say in the actions of the armed group which was
commanded by the Ottoman law enforcement functionary known as the bouloukbassi.
The armed men were given the primary tasks of hunting down armed bandits and
securing the roads and passes, a critical task for commerce in notoriously mountainous
Greece. They were also responsible for peacekeeping and the maintenance of public
order in the local communities. Whether these groups were under the command of
Ottoman authorities or under the command of the community, the expenses for their
maintenance 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 normally
Greek. In fact, the groups of armed bandits who were being hunted were usually people
who rebelled against the Ottoman regime, and sought protection and a base for their
raids in the mountainous areas of continental Greece. These groups of armed bandits
were known as kleftes (thieves). Sometimes the kleftes or their leader were given
amnesty by the Ottoman authorities in exchange for their services in protecting an area
against other thieves, and from then on, in most regions of Greece, they were known
as armatoloi (men of arms), and their leader armatolos or kapitanos. Thus, the roles of
hunters and hunted were interchangeable, because of the common origin of these
groups, and because the armatoloi often rebelled again. As a result, the activities of
both groups created problems for the Ottoman administration, but it was convenient for
the Ottoman authorities to use them instead of a regular army.
The practice of hiring the armatoloi for policing purposes was abolished in the early
nineteenth century, when, in conditions of general rebellion, the Ottoman authorities
attempted 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 in
the struggle for independence after 1821. In this way, the particular policing arrangements in effect under Ottoman rule proved vital in the rebellions that led to the creation
of the modern Greek state. For successive governments after liberation, however, the
armed mountain revolutionaries proved to be a serious obstacle to achieving hegemonic
control over the Greek countryside. Realizing this, one of the first tasks of Greeces
foreign-imposed monarchy was the cooption and/or pacification of these armed
rebels.
276
Post-liberation Ottonian Continental Policing, 18331906

The modern Greek state came into existence in 1830 in an agreement known as the
London Protocol, when the Great Powers (Great Britain, France and Russia) recognized Greeces independence. In the years leading up to the London Protocol, the
successes of the struggle for independence had resulted in the liberation of southern
Greece and the establishment of a political authority under Governor Ioannis Kapodistrias, a Greek who formerly worked for the Russian diplomatic service. The period
of Kapodistrias, which ended violently with his assassination in 1831, should be best
regarded as transitional. Although some steps were made toward the creation of a Greek
police force, the work of Kapodistrias does not seem to bear any importance for
developments after 1833 (see Troupakis 1904: 296). Immediately after his assassination, the Great Powers proposed naming a monarch for Greece. The person chosen was
the Bavarian prince Otto, son of the Bavarian monarch Louis I. Since Otto was a minor
at the time of his arrival in Greece in 1833, a council of regency was nominated to assist
him in his reign. The council, composed of academics and statesmen, undertook the task
of organizing the kingdoms administrative and judicial system, and essentially had
unlimited power because Greece had no constitution at the time. It is the work of the
council that gave Greece its first police bureaucracies.
Immediately after the initial successes of the revolution, the Greeks had to respond
to the problem of establishing a working state for the liberated territories. This gave rise
to extremely sharp confrontations between the armed groups and the military leaders of
the revolution, who were generally inspired by liberal ideas and originated from the
poorest segments of the population; and the various local aristocracies, who were the
land and ship owners; together with a class of educated men, who were formerly part
of the higher Ottoman bureaucracy. Obviously, the land-owning aristocracy possessed
significant political power, as its members exercised authority in the local communities
even before the revolution. Around 1825 it was already obvious that the revolution was
in immediate danger of suppression, and at the same time, that the revolution could be
saved and an independent Greek state could be established through the intervention of
the Great Powers. As a result of this belief, the political factions among the politicians
of that time were identified by their affiliation with one of the Great Powers: Great
Britain, France and Russia (Vakalopoulos 2001: 212; Vournas 1997: 247; Petropoulos
and Koumarianou 1977: 25, 1982: 70; Filias 1996: 98).8
The results of party rivalry and the subsequent establishment of the regime of
absolute (non-constitutional) monarchy in early modern Greece confirmed the hegemonic role and political power of the local aristocracies. Of course, this also had the
effect of disenfranchising and alienating the armed peasant revolutionaries who liberated Greece. The stark class division between the post-Ottoman aristocracy and the
revolutionary armatoloi boiled over on the issue of National Lands. The masses of
peasants and fighters expected the distribution of those lands as a sign of recognition
of their contribution to the cause of independence, and of course as a means to settle
down and improve their living conditions. Thus, a new revolutionary dialectic had
emerged 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 of
the struggle, as each of these groups more or less identified with one of them. As these parties survived the
Kapodistrian period, and continued to exist in the Ottonian period, their rivalry was transplanted in the
administration of the independent state and virtually permeated the political life of Greece until at least the
mid-1850s.
277
politically liberal ideas, the Ottonian regime, which was imposed by the Great Powers,
clearly appeared to be an unlawful totalitarian regime (Vournas 1997: 243; Vakalopoulos 2001: 228). This particular aspect was accentuated by the fact that a Bavarian force
of 3,500 mercenaries had arrived in Greece together with Otto and the council in 1833
and formed the kingdoms regular army (Vournas 1997: 237).
The territory of the new state was so ravaged by the continuous and brutal fighting
that the majority of its population of nearly 700,000 people lived in conditions of utter
poverty. The fighters had become a redundant and dangerous armed mass of about
5,000 men (Petropoulos and Koumarianou 1982: 93). In fact, since the arrival of Otto
in 1833, the fledgling government was forced to put down eight separate significant
uprisings.9 Large tracts of Greece seemed ungovernable as the mountain revolutionaries
demanded an end to conscription, taxation without representation and the introduction
of a constitutional democracy. Upon the councils arrival, these men had been ordered
to turn in their weapons a demand that was regarded as deeply insulting as most of
them expected to be part of the regular army. While some men sought employment with
the landlords and the local aristocrats, many simply returned to the life in the mountains
and rebellion (Vournas 1997: 243). Banditry was rife.
It was under these conditions that the members of the council of regency, who were
respectable statesmen and academics of European origin, shaped the first police system
of Greece. Their intention was to model it on systems existing in continental Europe,
particularly the French system, which typifies a continental European police (cf. Reith
1956; Emsley 1999). The system included a national gendarmerie and multiple municipal police forces, whose size could vary according to local policing needs. In 1833, the
Chorofylake became the first police force of modern Greece.10 The Chorofylakes were
given 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 the
Chorofylake 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 be
ineffective. Provisions of the 1833 Royal Decree suggest that the councils intention
was 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 as
many of them had turned to armed robbery and committed various acts of insubordination 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 former
fighters of the struggle for independence, making provisions for their inclusion in the
force. This proved no easy task as the regular army had already clashed repeatedly with
the fighters (Vournas 1997: 237). The creation of the new force therefore, was met with
suspicion, and although the Decree provided for 1,054 officers, only about 800 men
joined 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 Hydra
and 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. The
mission 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, in
order 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 younger
than 40. Also, a requirement for admission was the ability to read and write correctly. However, this did not
apply in the case of former fighters who joined the gendarmerie as infantry (Daskalakis 1973: 30). There are
278
The municipal police were another basic component of the policing system designed
by the Ottonian council of regency. It was part of the general organization of the local
government, which was also part of the same Decree regarding the formation and
division of municipalities (10 January 1834). It authorized the local government, and
particularly the mayor (Art. 91) to exercise police powers within the territory of each
municipality. The mayor was also responsible for the creation of a local police force by
requesting the appointment by the government of one (or two) police official(s), the
astynomos. If the municipality was large enough, or if special needs demanded, the
municipal police could be organized in more departments, to ensure proximity. The
lower 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 central
government nothing. The municipalities were by law requested to finance the operation
of 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 the
categorization of police work into administrative and judicial policing, which was
introduced by a subsequent Decree regarding municipal police (31 December 1836).
According to this distinction, administrative police pertained to law enforcement and
crime prevention, while judicial police pertained to the investigation of crimes and the
collection of evidence in order to arrest offenders and refer them to the criminal justice
authorities.13 While it is customary for police historians (mostly those who were
formerly police officers of the state police forces) to dismiss the municipal police force
as ineffective and unprofessional, the assumption that the municipal police sometimes
played important roles within the policing system of the Ottonian era is supported by
official reports of the situation in Greece. A circular of the Ministry of the Interior,
Footnote continued
no published data about the development of the gendarmeries strength during the 1830s. However, until 1847
the number of gendarmerie infantrymen had grown to 1,100 from an initial 805 in 1833, and for cavalrymen
to 150 from the initial 120 (Decree of 30 May 1847). For 1847, the authorized strength of the force was set
at 1,589 officers and men (Law O/1848). As the population estimate for 1847 (based on the 1845 census) was
973,472, this returns a ratio of 163.2 gendarmes per 100,000 people a large police force indeed, considering
that 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 of
31 December 1836.
13
This categorization was preceded by the provisions of the Penal Procedure of 1834, which formally
specified that the mayor and the municipal police official could act as investigating officers in a criminal
investigation (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 any
unlawful activities, whether criminal or not. Administrative policing supervises the application of laws and
regulations in everyday social activities, including traffic, commerce, sanitation and construction. On the other
hand, judicial policing is regarded as being auxiliary to the activities of the judicial authorities, and concerns
specific tasks, normally prescribed by legislation regarding criminal procedure, and follows the instructions of
the public prosecutor or the investigating judge. These duties include: arrests and detention, serving warrants
and collecting evidence (Tachos 1990: 61; Karavitis 1998: 11). In short, judicial policing is the exercise of the
sum of the powers given to the police by the Criminal Procedure. The distinction can be further clarified by
reference to the fact that, in the original system of the 1830s, the Commander (i.e., Prefect) who was empowered
to supervise the municipal police in its administrative police duties was the administrative authority of the wider
area; 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-1830s
has remained essentially unaltered since then as the defining characteristic of Greek police forces is the mixed
nature of its activities (i.e., both administrative and judicial policing). In any case, there has never been in the
history 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.
279
signed by the Minister (todays equivalent of prime minister) I. Kolletis, dated 13

February 1846, reads that: experience has proven that wherever the municipal
authorities acted sincerely toward the goal of eliminating armed robbery, armed robbery
has been instantly eliminated (Government Gazette no. 4/1846). An 1836 Decree
regarding the obligations of municipalities as to committed armed robberies within
their territory, issued 13 November 1836, specifically authorized the municipal authorities to act toward the elimination of this problem. The provisions of this Decree were
specified as temporary, expiring in 1838. However, after encouraging results, its
duration was extended until 1841.
Despite these reported successes, it can hardly be ignored that municipalities were
not particularly interested in the organization or training of their police officers (or
perhaps they could hardly afford it). There is not a single report about the operation of
a police academy operated by any municipality throughout the history of the municipal
police until 1893. Policing nineteenth-century Greek cities was a task met simply by a
reliance on prior experiences or brute force (Stamatis 1971: 62). Most importantly, as
the 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 intimidation 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 (Law
PKT/1849). This force (the Administrative Police of Athens and Piraeus) was
state-controlled, relieving the municipal authorities of Athens and Piraeus of their
policing responsibilities. Apart from the fact that officers of this force were appointed
by the state rather than municipal authorities, there was no difference in the powers its
members could exercise (Arts. 1 and 6). Thus, the name Administrative Police is
rather 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 in
the police forces of other municipalities; and second, the new force operated on the
existing infrastructure and could not be kept away from the intense partisan rivalries of
the second half of the nineteenth century. As governments came and went, so did the
personnel of the Administrative Police. Finally, in 1893 the government of Charilaos
Trikoupis abolished all municipal police forces. Under Law BPH/1893, all police
powers were transferred to the Army; the Chorofylake continued to police all areas
except Athens and Piraeus. In the capital, the officers of the Administrative Police were
placed under the orders of Army commissioned officers, and formed the Astyfylaki (city
guard). However, this reoganization was also short-lived. After the lost war of 1897,15
the Chorofylake became the main element of the police force, as the rest of the Army
was in serious need of reorganization. This development led to Law PE/1906, under
the provisions of which the Chorofylake became exclusively responsible for policing
the 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.

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 under
a negotiated truce.
15
280
massive infrastructure projects and a naval embargo by the Great Powers tapped the
treasury.16
Thus, by the beginning of the twentieth century, Greece was still engaged in
campaigns internally to pacify banditry and revolution, and externally in trying to
extend the borders of the state to encompass Greeks not yet liberated from Ottoman
rule.17 In this context, a single state gendarmerie came to police the entire country.
One Gendarmerie, 19061920

Under Law PE/1906, the Chorofylake became a single state police force, whose
jurisdiction extended to the whole territory of Greece. The structure of the force created
by the reform of 1906, and by the subsequent Law OZ/1910 remained essentially
unchanged for the largest part of the twentieth century. National police forces, generally, 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 Chorofylake
proved themselves to be no exception. In 19161917, the Chorofylake sided with the
monarchy against elected liberals and supporters of Venizelos who wanted to join the
Entente during the First World War (King Konstantinos favoured neutrality). When
Venizelos took control of liberated Thessaloniki, his supporters were terrorized in
Athens 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 of
Athens in 1917. However, in 1920, in what was becoming a commonplace practice,
Army officers and Chorofylakes loyal to Konstantinos were reinstated when the
monarchist United Opposition came to power.
The Chorofylake participated actively in various military assignments in the twentieth
century. The force fought as part of the Army, carrying out military police duties and
holding 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 every
Greek war effort (Daskalakis 1973: 5870) but more importantly, Greeces numerous
16
Greece was being penalized for its relentless expansionist campaigns against the Ottoman Empire.
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 on
the gendarmes in Paris. They assisted in the seizure of the Ministry of the Interior and threw out ministers who
opposed the coup detat. Even after workers and peasants reassembled to restore the Republic, the gendarmerie
sided 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 the
new regime (Emsley 1999: 124125). A similar conservative political allegiance is to be found among the Italian
carabinieri, most recently evinced in reports of fascist tactics in Genoa during anti-globalization and
anti-capitalist demonstrations. However, the best example of the resolute dedication of the carabinieri came
in February 1834 when, according to the tradition of the corps, Giovanni Battista Scapaccino came across a
group of republican volunteers coming from Switzerland and France. When called upon to declare his allegiance
to the republican cause, Scapaccino responded Long live the King! before being summarily executed. As
Emsley (1999: 193) puts it: after 1821 the loyalty of the Piedmontese Carabinieri to its monarch was never
again in doubt, and the senior officers of the corps prided themselves on a personal bond between the Carabinieri
and the king. Eventually, the Italian Government would become so concerned about the carabinieri that they
created the Guardia di Pubblica Sicurreza on the supposed British model of a civilian police.
17
281
military campaigns and in particular the participation of the force in wars until 1920
accelerated police reforms in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Due to its war
involvement, the Chorofylake suffered consequences in its capacity to police civilian
populations, especially in the cities.
After the Balkans War of 19121913, Greece expanded to the north, increasing its
population and adding the city of Thessaloniki. This put the Chorofylake under
tremendous pressure. By 1910, it had already begun to supplement their ranks with
conscripts, and all training ended under the pressure of replacing losses. The recruitment procedures that followed then undermined significantly the quality of policing in
the interior (Naskos 1932: 204; Daskalakis 1973: 53). In May 1919, Greece sent an
expeditionary force to Smyrne, Anatolia and by 1920, the Army had advanced into Asia
Minor. Greece had thus gained territories in eastern Thrace and Smyrne, but the military
campaign took a tremendous toll on the Chorofylake who, given their depleted
resources, were left unable to police the interior. Moreover, a major influx of Greeks
began to move into the interior, and particularly the cities, as they left their homes to
escape the destruction of the war front. This was only a forewarning of the massive
migration to come.
The Return of a City Police, 19201984

Conditions pursuant to the Balkans War of 19121913, the First World War and the
campaign 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 Greece
returned to a two-force system. According to census data, between 1907 and 1920, the
population of Athens and Piraeus almost doubled from 250,010 to 453,042. The second
largest city in 1920 was Thessaloniki, with a population of 174,390. In 1907, 17.9 per
cent 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 the
First World War period and the construction industry could not respond to demands for
new 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 after
World War I with Turkey, fighting its way to the outskirts of Ankara. The Turkish
Army counter-attacked and the Greeks were forced to retreat as the Turkish Army set
Smyrne ablaze on 27 August. This Disaster in Asia Minor exacerbated the flight of
Greek refugees to the mainland. In 1922, approximately 2 million Greeks lived in
western Asia Minor and about half a million of them in Smyrne. After the collapse of
the front, over one million people were pushed toward the coast as the Turkish Army
began to hunt down and massacre Greeks. About 750,000 Greeks fled to the islands and
the coast (Despotopoulos et al. 1978). In January 1923, Greece and Turkey signed
protocols on the exchange of populations, prisoners of war and hostages. Some 1.2
million 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, the
population of Athens swelled to half a million in 1924 double its population only six
years earlier. Large numbers also moved to Thessaloniki, although most Greeks settling
in Macedonia moved to rural areas (Veremis 1978). Apart from creating massive
urbanization, housing shortages, poverty and policing problems, these developments led
282
to the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, finalizing Greeces national borders19 and putting an
end to the expansionist dream of a greater Greece under the Great Idea.
The developments after 1922, especially the large increase in urban populations after
the 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 particularities of life in the city. In 1914, Francesco Garigliotta, the leader of an Italian expedition
for the re-organization of the Chorofylake, proposed the creation of a new police force
that would specialize in the policing of cities. The engagement of Greece in the Balkan
front during World War I postponed any developments until 1918, when new legislation
regarding the organization of the Chorofylake explicitly excluded five large cities from
its jurisdiction, and prescribed that a new force would be organized for the policing of
these urban centres (Art. 12, Law 1370/1918). The Chorofylake would continue to
operate in these cities until the creation of the new force, and was to maintain its duties
pertaining to public security (i.e., the conduct of criminal investigation and powers
connected with judicial police). A 1919 British expedition of officers of the London
Metropolitan Police under Sir Frederick Hallyday evaluated the situation in Greece and
also proposed the creation of a new professional police force, which would take over
completely the policing duties of the Chorofylake in larger cities. This British proposal
differed significantly from previously existing plans, essentially advocating the restoration of the 1849 Administrative Police. The proposal of the British expedition was
accepted in its entirety, and, in 1920, Law 2461/1920 created the force of the Astynomia
Poleon (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 two
bodies are identical and serve the same purpose, the methods and other details in
exercising these duties are different, given discrepancies in living conditions and other
particularities of larger cities versus life in smaller cities and rural communities.20
Initially, Athens, Piraeus, Thessaloniki, Patrae and Corfu were to be policed by the
Astynomia Poleon, as the first four were the largest cities as well as industrial and
commercial centres, and Corfu was the most important destination for tourists coming
to Greece at that time (Stamatis 1971: 107). The 1918 statute prescribed that the new
force would be installed in each city, with the Chorofylake continuing to exercise
policing duties in the interim (with the exception of Thessaloniki).21 The creation of the
Astynomia Poleon followed precisely the guidelines of the British expedition, and to
make 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 rather
an 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 after
World War II.
20
The special training and general methods of the Chorofylake were deemed misaligned to the exercise of
urban policing duties because of the militarized character of this force and the extension of its jurisdiction in
every part of the Greek territory. Men of the Chorofylake underwent army training, and the conditions of service
also included a system of frequent transfers. Officers in the lower ranks hardly served in the same city for more
than six months, thus it was virtually impossible for officers of the Chorofylake to become familiar with local
conditions and needs, or even with the geography of a particular place. According to the report, this situation
compromised 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 of
living, 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 need
to maintain a more militarized presence there, which they were more adept at providing.
283
TABLE I
Patrolman/private of the Chorofylaki

Corporal (Chorofylaki only)
Sergeant
Warrant Officer (Chorofylaki only)
Comparison of wages
Astynomia Poleon (1920)
(in drachmas)
Chorofylaki (1925)
(in drachmas)
200
n/a
240
n/a
135
150
170
200
Source: Art. 26, Law 2461/1920; Art. 43, Leg. Decree 27 October 1925.
recruited through a special selection procedure and underwent police training: all
officers serving with the Astynomia Poleon were expected to develop into career
professionals, capable of exercising policing as scientifically and methodically as
their model police, the London Metropolitan Police (Stamatis 1971: 101). For this
purpose (and this was a major novelty at the time), the new force organized its own
training facilities and developed its own training courses. The first school for police
officers of the Astynomia Poleon was established in the city of Corfu, which was the
first city taken over by the force in October 1921 (Stamatis 1971: 107; Kampanakis
1997: 21).22 The minimum monthly wage of officers serving with the Chorofylake and
those of the Astynomia Poleon were differentiated by law. In an attempt to compensate
officers adequately for serving with the new city police, a separate pay structure was
devised (see Table I). Although the Astynomia Poleon was evidently designed to be a
professional urban police force, during the 1920s there was some uncertainty regarding
its jurisdiction and powers. Finally, Law 3754/1929 clarified that the Chorofylake was
to remain in the city of Thessaloniki, but the Astynomia Poleon would operate in the
other four cities, according to the original British plan.23
A particular problem connected with the Chorofylake and the Astynomia Poleon, as
well with the other state security agencies since the 1930s and especially in the
post-Civil War period, was its continuous and active engagement in the political
policing of the Greek population. This engagement had been a direct consequence of
institutional, and even constitutional, arrangements that allowed continuous surveillance
and suppression of individuals and organizations (political or other) connected with, or
friendly to, the Greek Communist Party. The first sanctioned persecution of communists
began 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 to
return 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 probationary
period (Art. 9, Law 2461/1920). This statute also raised some obstacles to the transfer of personnel of lower
ranks from the Chorofylake to the new force, thus making clear that it was going to develop its own standards
independently.
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 several
innovations in Greek policing after World War II, such as the operation of the first telecommunication centre
and radio car patrols (the 100 service).
24
The law prescribed a sentence of at least six months imprisonment for any person found guilty of acting
toward the implementation of ideas obviously aiming at the subversion of the current social system through
violent means. It also prescribed a procedure for the dissolution of communist unions or associations, as well
as special provisions for the persecution of public servants and military officers friendly to subversive ideas
(Economou 1978).
284
is the main fortress against dictatorship and social turbulence (Economou 1978:
311).
Venizelos anti-communist stance did not save him from monarchist and ultra-rightists who plotted a coup detat in March 1933, or save him from an assassination attempt
in June following a parliamentary majority. During the events of March 1933, the
Chorofylake and Army played an active role in impeding democratically elected
officials from taking office. As a result, 45 commissioned officers were discharged in
January 1934. Perhaps even more disturbing, the investigation into the assassination
attempt against Venizelos revealed that officers of the Astynomia Poleon (who were
arrested almost immediately) were part of a conspiracy with a known bandit and a
conservative Member of Parliament (Economou 1978: 324). The institutional foundations for practices of political policing had been firmly laid during the period of the
Metaxas dictatorship (19361941), when the police had been given extensive powers to
keep under surveillance, and actively control, individuals who either had any connection to the Communist Party or engaged in any activities regarded by the government
as subversive. These powers included prolonged detention and even banishment of
these individuals without any judicial authorization or decision. The police, by employing a network of informers, would require from suspected persons the submission of
statements 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 basic
component of state ideology. These powers not only continued to be exercised by the
police, but were intensified as surveillance and suppression was legitimized by the
political system and institutionalized through constitutional arrangements (Alivizatos
1986: 536). The incident at Meligala, Messinia on 1113 September 1944, in which
communist EAM-ELAS (National Liberation Front Greek Peoples Liberation Army)
andartes overran a detachment of Chorofylake and Security Battalion men and proceed
to slaughter them, is one important example of the hatred and bitterness on the part of
revolutionaries toward the Chorofylake for their active role in suppressing communism
especially when the Gendarmes cooperated with German-equipped Security Battalions, 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 32
were wounded. As there was an imminent danger of riots, the Army was ordered to police the city. Ioannis
Metaxas exploited the incident politically by stating that the riots were the general rehearsal for a communist
revolution. 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 the
King, issued several decrees under which Parliament was dissolved for an indefinite period of time and severe
restrictions were imposed on civil liberties, including freedom of association and freedom of the press. In
addition, the requirement of a warrant for arrest was abolished. The reasons for these measures were the expected
serious breach of the public order and the communist threat. The Metaxas regime is known as the Regime
of the 4th of August. The Metaxas Government attempted to impose a fascist-type rule, with ideological
references to notions such as the New National State and the Third Greek Civilization. The regime imposed
draconian censorship on the press and intensified the persecution of communists. Law 117/1936 introduced even
harsher policies and sentences against communists than the previous Law 4229/1929. The duration of
banishment, which could be applied by the police alone, was set from 6 months to 2 years. The regime also
created a special Sub-Ministry of Security. According to official data, about 50,000 people were arrested, and
about 47,000 submitted statements of repentance to the authorities. Koliopoulos (1978) suggests that these
numbers are exaggerated because the Communist Party only had 15,000 members in 1935 (see also Alivizatos
1986).
26
These Security Battalions comprised about 20,000 men in September 1944, and regularly cooperated
with the Chorofylake in operations against the EAM-ELAS (Daskalakis 1973). As a result, operations of the
285
By 1947, clashes between the Army and communist groups escalated into full civil
war. Controversial Law 509/1947 was issued, according to which the Communist Party
and its organizations, including EAM, were outlawed. The law prescribed the death
penalty to anyone guilty of aiming to subvert the government. It is interesting to note
that in the summer of 1946, the government of Tsaldaris relieved the Chorofylake of
military duties against the communists and gave this task to the Army and National
Guard. Once the domestic situation in Greece had escalated into full civil war, the
Chorofylake were found to be lacking in training and equipment for such tasks.
Nonetheless, the intense antipathy towards the Chorofylake by the Left began to
change only after the fall of the military junta in 1974, when under the new Constitution
of 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 in
the 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 government
restructuring, including especially the police.
THE 1984 AMALGAMATION: A CHANGE IN THE RELATION BETWEEN
SOCIETY AND STATE
Only ten years after the military junta, the invasion of Cyprus by Turkey and the return
of democracy in 1974, the Greek Government sought to reorganize the police one more
time. For the Astynomia Poleon, this marked another structural transformation in a long
history of successive changes since liberation. For the Chorofylake, it marked an end to
the Gendarmeries 151 years of uninterrupted service. Still shaking off the dust of a
brutal civil war, political unrest and a recent military dictatorship, there were ample
reasons to wrest control of internal security out of the hands of a police elite loyal to
the Right and into a reorganized Ministry of Public Order. Moreover, one way to
continue to heal the wounds of political fractiousness and ideological stalemate between
Right 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) to
have been largely cosmetic, this would surely underestimate the weight of the ideological baggage still associated with the histories of the Astynomia Poleon and Chorofylake
among both the Right and Left in Greek political circles. Moreover, the intense
partisanship and relatively poor training and professionalism of the forces led to the
political assumption that a name change and restructuring could aid in the process of
state legitimacy and would fall in step with the socialists basic 1981 electoral platform
of allaghi (change).
In 1984, the Chorofylake and the Astynomia Poleon were amalgamated into a new
police force, the Helleniki Astynomia (Greek Police), which was to operate as part of
the new Ministry of Public Order. Papandreous socialist Panhellenic Socialist MoveEAM-ELAS also targeted police forces. A characteristic example is the fighting in Meligala, Messinia on 1113
September 1944, when the local Security Battalion and the local Chorofylake were overrun and brutally
slaughtered by the EAM-ELAS. The description of these events varies significantly according to the political
position of the historian. Conventional police historians and histories written before 1974 usually glorify the
role 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 parliamentary
discussions 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 against
collaborators (e.g., Tsoukalas 1981).
286
ment (PASOK) Government advocated the reform in both political and operational
terms, amid much controversy. The explanatory report of Law 1481/1984
(Organization of the Ministry of Public Order) to the Greek Parliament focused
heavily on the expected operational benefits from the abolition of the multiple police
force system. At the same time, however, the Government made absolutely clear that
the new legislation aimed at the materialization of a political project as well: the
democratization of the police, which was intended to serve as means toward a change
in the relation between Society and State (Ministry of Public Order 1984: 1). The
reorganization of the Greek police was seen as a political necessity, toward the goal of
transforming them into a genuine social service and a mechanism of support of popular
sovereignty (Ministry of Public Order 1984: 1). Thus, the expected operational benefits
were presented as intermediate stages toward the achievement of this strategic plan.27
The governmental logic deployed was largely based on the alleged ineffectiveness of
the police, even though at that time the number of serving officers was about 44,000 for
a population of slightly less than 10 million, making the officer/citizen ratio among the
highest in the Western world.28 The new force retained the militarized structure and
character of the Chorofylake, which was therefore generalized to all Greek police (the
Astynomia Poleon had always been a civil force). The preservation of military structure
and disciplinary code was deemed necessary given that the explanatory report and
proposed bill defined the mission of the police as a war on crime. Perhaps even more
importantly, the direct analogy to the Army invoked effectiveness and attempted draw
attention away from the graft and corruption often associated with public office and
policing in Greece. The Army is one of the few departments of the state that is generally
held in high regard. Thus, the Minister argued:
Special organization firstly means that police units are capable of undertaking operations against the
criminal or those disrupting the public order, operations similar to those undertaken by the Army
against the enemy. It also means that the services and the personnel are equipped with appropriate
means (weapons, machinery, vehicles, communications) for the execution of these operations. Finally
it means that the police officers are trained and commanded with special hierarchical subordination
and disciplinary rules, so that they are capable of fighting the daily battles, which constitute this
continuous 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 and
the protection of public order. As the police had been the only public service working virtually 24 hours a day
and 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 particular
relation to the issue of public order or security. The Government regarded this development as pathology on
not only administrative but also political grounds, as it resulted in continuous surveillance of the social and
private lives of the citizens. (2) To help improve the relation of the public and the police. The prolonged use
of police coercion had resulted in mistrust and enmity between the police and the public. (3) To increase the
productivity of the police officers. (4) To deal effectively with increasing crime rates and, particularly, the new
forms of criminal behaviour. (5) To enhance the education and training of police officers, as well as their working
conditions (Ministry of Public Order 1984: 1).
28
The reasons brought forward by the Governments explanatory report were: (1) the division of police
personnel in many police forces; (2) the complicated command structure for frontline units; (3) the
over-expansion of staff formations (i.e., the central services of both forces); (4) the scattering of frontline
personnel into many small units; (5) the lack of a single service responsible for civil defence (i.e., intervention
in emergency situations such as natural disasters the Fire Brigade is such a service in Greece); (6) the variation
in the organization of police services; (7) the unbalanced distribution of personnel; (8) the multiple levels in
the chain of command; (9) the outdated legislative framework; (10) the undemocratic [sic] and outdated methods
of police work; (11) the multiple centres of command; (12) the assignment to police officers of a variety of
general 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 the
number 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).
287
The organization of the new police was divided into four branches: Public Order,
Public Security, Civil Defense and Logistics. (This structure has not changed
significantly since the 2000 reform and introduction of a headquarters for the Helliniki
Astynomia.) The compartmentalization was expected to result in higher specialization
and, therefore, in a significant improvement in efficiency.29 Of course, the reforms were
met with fierce criticism by both the conservative opposition and the Communist Party.
It also caused considerable skepticism among police officers, as the bill brought about
several changes in the system of promotions. During the parliamentary debate on the
proposed bill, the conservative opposition argued that the reform had been ill-prepared
and that the government sought parliamentary affirmation of its plans without allowing
adequate time for consultation and debate (Hellenic Parliament 1984: 1327).30 Some
Conservative Members of Parliament even reported signs of severe discontent among
the police officers and alleged that these reactions had led the government to minimize
consultation (Hellenic Parliament 1984: 13351336).
Another ground for criticism was the integration of all police forces into the
organization of the Ministry of Public Order. The Opposition feared that this development would increase the Governments capability of controlling police leaders by
promoting officers to the highest ranks on partisan grounds. As a result, the Government
would have been able to manipulate the police as a whole. In any case, since the
amalgamation of the forces, special measures have been taken to assuage public
fears of partisanship and build a professional and politically detached national
law enforcement agency. These measures include the creation and support of
specialized recruit selection and training academies for commissioned31 and non29
After the 2000 reform, Art. 15 of Law 2800/2000 provided for the creation of a police committee in the
capital city of each prefecture, which is composed of the Public Prosecutor at the Court of Misdemeanors, as
head, and the Police Director and other representatives of the local authorities, as members. In theory, these
committees are designed to facilitate the localization of police services in the territory of each prefecture. Their
decisions, 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 weight
to 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 project
would 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 Officers
of the Police Academy. This is also the case for officers who served in the pre-existing police forces before
1984, as those forces maintained similar special schools. Exceptionally, commissioned officers may, under
special provisions, originate from the ranks of Police Sergeants or Warrant Officers. Officers belonging to this
category 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 rank
to those promoted by special procedure (Art. 5 of Presidential Decree 24/1997). Therefore, the higher ranks
are occupied exclusively by regular commissioned officers. Clearly, this system can be understood to be the
product of tradition, as there was always a clear split between commissioned and non-commissioned officers
in both the Chorofylake and the Astynomia Poleon (Kampanakis 1997: 20; Stamatis 1971). Recruitment
procedures, until 1994, were exclusively organized and controlled by the forces themselves. Special schools
for police officers were organized and operated by each force, and, after 1984, by the Helleniki Astynomia. Under
these arrangements, any person wishing to join the police had to pass a special examination (organized on a
yearly basis) before being admitted to the police school. The problem with this procedure was the lack of any
guarantee of objectivity in the assessment of candidates; there was much room for partisan influences on the
final 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 were
generally of lower standard, was fixed (Zianikas 1990). The system of special examinations did not change with
the advent of the Helleniki Astynomia, although under the reform of 1984 all police training services came under
the supervision of a single agency: the Police Academy (Kampanakis 1997: 23). Law 2226/1994 introduced
a radical re-organization of the recruitment procedure in order to establish adequate levels of objectivity in the
selection of all police personnel. Under the current system introduced by that statute, those wishing to join either
288
commissioned32 officers, and special review of applicants for higher commissioned

ranks.33 These fears were nonetheless very visible in the long parliamentary debate on
the bill (Hellenic Parliament 1984: 1331, 1335, 1345). Of course, Greek police forces
had been vulnerable to political interventions through the selection of police leaders and
general staff in the past. However, given the general targets of these political appointees, the Conservative Right had much less to fear than their communist or socialist
revolutionary colleagues in Parliament.
The Oppositions final criticism was based on tradition. The reform, they argued, was
bound to eliminate a certain esprit de corps, which had been cultivated in both forces
for decades. The differences in the culture of the two forces would undermine the
project of a single police force, thus leading to an immediate and considerable
deterioration in the quality of policing. In addition, the Opposition suggested that the
officers of the Astynomia Poleon, who served only in a few cities, could, after the
reform be transferred to a completely different social and operational environment, thus
suffering considerable consequences in their personal and family lives. The bill,
however, included a transitional provision for officers of the Astynomia Poleon, and in
the end, this did not create notable problems when the reform was implemented. The
Lefts opposition was largely based on similar fears but also dredged up recollections
of what a large militarized policing agency had meant for communists in the past. When
Footnote continued
as commissioned officers or patrolmen are selected by means of the national competitive examination, whose
results determine admission to university-level education. A slight change since 1994 is that the examination
is now an integral part of graduation from high school; its result determines the mark of the high school
graduation degree, a system very reminiscent of the French baccalaureat degree examination. High school
students submit a uniform application stating their university department of preference; the Schools of the Police
Academy are included in the list of possible choices and, therefore, candidates who have the best graduating
mark and selected the Schools of the Police as their first choice (or among their top choices) qualify for
admission. Problems of objectivity are instantly solved through this procedure. Moreover, the problem of
candidate 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 Warrant
Officer. These days, they are graduates of the School of Patrolmen of the Police Academy. Between 1985 and
1994, until the Police Academy was reorganized and the recruitment procedures changed, the Helleniki
Astynomia operated a special school for the training of Police Sergeants. Older forces also maintained special
schools for the training of personnel of lower ranks. After the 1994 reform in the system of recruitment, entry
into non-commissioned ranks is possible by means of the general examinations organized for admission to
university education. The number of officers to be admitted varies with each year, and there is a quota on the
number of women who may be admitted: the ratio is actually prescribed by the law and is 80 per cent men to
20 per cent women. Candidates must be less than 26 years of age, and must satisfy height and bodily structure
requirements. They must also pass medical and physical tests. The period of study in the School of Patrolmen
is 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 these
restrictions because they form (together with serving Lieutenant Generals) the personnel pool from which all
top appointments of the police are selected. The Chief of the Helleniki Astynomia is appointed by the
Government, specifically the Governmental Council of Foreign Policy and National Defense (KYSEA), and
any officer holding the rank of Major General or Lieutenant General can be selected for this position. The
Council enjoys absolute freedom in making their selection, and if a Major General is selected, he is promoted
to the rank of Lieutenant General. Officers more senior in rank than him are automatically discharged from
service. There are internal councils of assessment for the assessment and appointment of other officers that
operate with different composition according to the rank of the police officer under assessment. These councils
base their decisions on partial assessments of each officer effected by the officer in command of the unit in which
the officer serves (Art. 22 of Presidential Decree 24/1997). The law organizes a system based on the so-called
ability reports submitted regularly each year. Officers are assessed on a scale of 110 (low to high) for their
abilities, skills, knowledge and general attitude toward the service. Promotion may not be based exclusively
on merit, but also on seniority. However, if an officer receives bad marks, the Council may decide to discharge
him from the force.
289
the Conservative Party (ND) came into power again in 1990, the new single police force
had been operating for six years. The tense atmosphere of the 1984 parliamentary
debate left no mark on conservative policies; and at no time was there any intention of
recreating the multiple police force system.
While some of the core arguments for the 1984 amalgamation followed neo-liberal
rhetoric of avoiding complicated command structures, unbalanced distribution and
multiple levels of staff formations, the post-1984 period has seen an overall expansion rather than retrenchment of public policing staff strength in Greece. Previous
statistical reports of Greek policing (see DeWaard 1999) have underreported actual
strength because respondents sent in statistics on frontline officers only. Table II
demonstrates that the number of total police personnel (excluding civilians) per 100,000
population in Greece has climbed steadily from 1995 to 2002 from 403.8 to 489.0 a
21 per cent increase. When one examines authorized strength numbers (which do not
necessarily reflect actual strength), the Greek government has statutorily authorized a
16.5 per cent overall increase from 1984 to 2000 (see Table III), which in terms of
authorized 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 following
amalgamation to over 3.6 per cent, then gradually decreasing to less than 1.5 per cent
in 1996 and then rising again up to 2001 at over 2 per cent of the budget (see Figure
1). From 1987 to 2001, public policing has rather consistently absorbed between 1.5 to
2 per cent of the annual budget.
The reported size of the Greek private security sector (which we will discuss in more
detail later) has also been grossly underreported as no available survey had ever been
undertaken 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
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
42,178
43,950
44,183
45,389
45,840
45,565
45,238
45,215
2,178
3,200
4,127
4,126
963
2,316
2,293
2,293
42,178
43,950
44,183
45,389
48,981
51,081
51,658
51,634*
403.5
419.5
420.8
431.6
464.8
484.0
489.0
*Data up to 2 July 2002.

Source: Ministry of Public Order 2002.
TABLE III
Authorized strength for Greek police forces
Year
Chorofylake
Astynomia
Poleon
Helliniki
Astynomia
Total
Police:100K
1956
1966
1973
1984
2000
19,285
22,391
22,518
6,988
9,030
9,777
38,482
44,815
26,273
31,421
32,295
38,482
44,815
327.1
364.8
361.7
388.9
425.1
Source: various Presidential Decrees.
290
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 Order
in 1997. For 2001, 674 companies or franchise offices registered as contract private
security services, reporting a total of 18,769 personnel or 177.6 officers per 100,000
population. This figure does not include inhouse security staff. Thus, the ratio of public
officers to contract private security agents is 0.363, or 2.751 for Greece in 2001. This
is much different than interpolations for English-speaking countries such as Canada
( 12, see Swol 2000; Saunders 2003; DeWaard 1999), the United States ( 13, see
Cunningham 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 as
many private security officers than public police.
On the face of it, therefore, the modern organization of Greek public policing is
toward public growth, militarization,34 centralization and rather consistent public investment. However, as we will explore in the next section, there are also countervailing
trends and recent developments in Greek policing (both public and private) that hint at
changes 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 academic
literature (Bayley and Shearing 1996; Johnston 2002; Jones and Newburn 1998). This
is in no small part due to the fact that rather profound transformations have been taking
place 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 military
being used as a metaphorical reference and a framework for the new Helleniki Astynomia. Moreover, as in the
case of basic military service, both commissioned and non-commissioned personnel are still required to do
frontline service in either remote or frontier units: in the case of patrolmen, this could be either in the General
Directorates of Attiki (Athens) or Thessaloniki or in units of Police Directorates along the northern and eastern
border (Florina, Kastorina, Orestiada) or in Police Directorates in the Aegean Islands.
291
Ericson and Haggerty 1997; Marx 1987; OMalley 1996; Shearing 1987; Sheptycki
2000). Perhaps the most important of these transformations has been the increasing
number 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 has
been aimed at analyzing the decreasing involvement of the state in direct security
provision and the increasing role played by an array of other public, private and
quasi-public policing bodies. These trends, of course, have been more amplified in
North America, northern Europe and South Africa than in other nations (DeWaard
1999; Jones and Newburn 1998), and as we have seen, do not seem to apply to
developments in Greece.
Despite concerted efforts in the almost three decades since the junta including the
spectacular recent successes of Greeces anti-terrorism squad against the November 17
organization the Greek state and Greek policing continue to fight an uphill battle
against public perception.35 Of course, popular opinion usually lags behind institutional
change,36 and it may take another generation before the impact of the 1984 reforms and
subsequent structural adjustments in 2000 will be measurable. State and police effectiveness continues to be an issue in Greece, with episodic failures of the Helleniki
Astynomia 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 public
order with state expansion has actually accelerated in contemporary democratic Greece,
there is evidence to suggest that the most recent expansion in the Helleniki Astynomia
has been conditioned by neo-liberal or post-Keynesian thinking. Moreover, two other
profound and interlinked developments have propelled changes in policing: the upcoming 2004 Olympics, and the hunting down of one of Europes most notorious terrorist
organizations. In this final section, we also consider the emergence of two specialized
services within the gamut of the Helleniki Astynomia: the Synoriaki Fylakes (Border
Guards) and the Eidiki Frouri (Special Guards) introduced in 1998 and 1999, respectively. These special police services, while employed within the Helleniki Astynomia and
under the Ministry of Public Order, are very much distinct forces with specialized terms
of service, recruiting and uniforming. Further developments in Greek policing are the
re-emergence, at least formally, of municipal law enforcement and the very recent, yet
relatively 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 the
wake of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and Greeces entry into the Eurozone, the
Border Guard Service was created in 1998. Its mission is the prevention of unlawful
entry 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-capitalist
parlance: the extent to which government policies are conducive to competition; IMD 2002). A more
non-ideological measure is the corruption perceptions index put together by Transparency International. In
2001, Greece scored 4.2 out of 10 on the index, placing the country 24 out of 30 OECD countries. In the World
Economic Forums 1997 international poll of capitalists and managers, Greece scored last among the European
Union 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 dozen
November 17 terrorists during the writing of this article. In the groups 27-year history, they have been
responsible for over 28 murders, and none of the organizations members have ever been caught or arrested.
292
re-forwarding (i.e., expulsion) as well as the prosecution of any persons aiding in the
entry of illegal immigrants. The Border Guard service consists of a central (coordinating) unit at the Ministry of Public Order and several Border Guard departments attached
to Police Directorates, whose jurisdiction includes areas of the Greek border with
Albania, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey there are also departments operating on the
island of Corfu (Kerkyra), which is close to the Albanian coastline.37
The Border Guards constitute a special category of personnel in the Ministry of
Public Order (as specifically described by Art. 2, Para. 2 of Law 2622/1998). They have
the 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 the
Helleniki Astynomia. In fact, their appearance is much closer to soldiers than police
officers. Most importantly, a Border Guards status in the service is equivalent to that
of a patrolman, but they are different in that they cannot be promoted, and in case of
a serious disciplinary infraction, are fired rather than suspended or dismissed from
service (Art. 4, Paras. 3, 5, and 7 of Law 2622/1998).
There are other important differences between Border Guards and officers of the
Helleniki Astynomia. First, Border Guards must possess particular physical abilities and
body structure, which by law excludes many women from applying in fact, a ratio of
9 men to every woman is prescribed for the make-up of the force (Art. 3, Para. 1 of Law
2622/1998). Second, males must have fulfilled their national military obligation and
must be less than 32 years of age, while females must be no more than 26. A third
requirement is that candidates must have been residents of the area of operation of a
Border Guard Department either for the last two years before applying or from birth
until 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 to
others. Also, applicants who speak a foreign language or possess a drivers license are
also given priority.38
Despite all of these differences, the most notable disparity between the Border
Guards and regular patrolman of the Helleniki Astynomia is that the former are hired on
five-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 performs
the usual duties of any commander of a Helleniki Astynomia Department. He also serves as a link between the
police and local and military authorities in the area, and coordinates multi-agency efforts toward the prevention
of unlawful entry by aliens (Art. 6 of Presidential Decree 310/1998). The law says nothing specific about the
character and content of these multi-agency efforts so much relies on how the police perceive the situation in
a specific area, and on the willingness of authorities to work together. As the police are exclusively authorized
to deal with illegal immigrants, the initiative lies with them. However, in sectors controlled by the Army, the
police are required by law to report their entrance and movement to Army authorities. The role of local
authorities remains ambiguous. The rest of the command structure of a Border Guard Department consists of
regular commissioned and non-commissioned officers of the Helleniki Astynomia.
38
The obvious sexist overtones of the law hardly need highlighting. Applications are reviewed by a
Committee, specially constituted for this purpose: its members are appointed by the Chief of the Helleniki
Astynomia, with one Police Director as head and two Police Captains A as members. It must be noted that
this procedure is very different from that generally followed for selection of personnel in Greek public services.
Since 1994, a special independent administrative authority the Highest Council for Personnel Selection
(ASEP) supervises this general procedure in order to ensure integrity and to eliminate any political interference
in making the selection. Therefore, it is clear that the legislation about the selection of Border Guards intended
to bypass the supervision of ASEP, while, curiously, the legislation about the selection of the Special Guards,
by and large, did not.
293
service. In fact, they must register with the general social security foundation (IKA).
Their pay is equal to that of a regular patrolmen, but they are not entitled to a career.
There is no rank or promotional structure for Border Guards. These contractual
arrangements are also in effect for the Special Guard service. In fact, when the Special
Guards were formed in 1999, much of the relevant Law simply makes direct reference
to the legislation for Border Guards.
The Special Guards have the exclusive mission of guarding sensitive targets of
police interest, such as buildings and facilities belonging to public services and
(state-owned) companies, judicial premises, embassies and residences of governmental
officials (Art. 9, Para. 4 of Law 2734/1999). According to a recent amendment
(introduced by Law 2838/2000), however, they can also be assigned to special police
units or used to form special units or detachments dealing with particular forms of
criminality or the pursuit of fugitives and the recovery of missing persons. Just as is the
case with the Border Guards, they constitute a special category of personnel of the
Ministry of Public Order and are considered police personnel in their general status,
powers and obligations. Recently, a statutory clarification (Law 2838/2000) stated that
Special Guards cannot exercise any duties in the context of a criminal investigation. As
with the Border Guards, there are similar physical, age, sex and other restrictions.
In fact, those who have served in the Army Special Forces or have volunteered for
a five-year military service are given priority (Art. 9, Para 6 of Law 2734/1999).
Applicants must be high school graduates, preferably having a good graduating mark,
and speak a foreign language.39 Like Border Guards, Special Guards are employed on
five-year contracts, which can be renewed for consecutive terms until the Guard reaches
35 years of service or 55 years of age. The recruit undergoes basic police training for
three months before entering the service (Art. 9, Paras. 2, 7 and 8 of Law 2734/1999).
They are also entitled to the same pay as a regular police patrolman, and must register
with the social security foundation (IKA).
The development of these specialized policing services necessitate further scrutiny.
When we re-examine Table II more carefully, we see that reliance on contract police
(both Special Guards and Border Guards) has increased significantly since their
introduction. In 1999, 6.4 per cent of the Helleniki Astynomias strength came from
these services, but by 2001, 12.4 per cent of personnel were employed in these
specialized contract forces. In fact, when looking only at the core police of the Helleniki
Astynomia, since 1999 their numbers have been decreasing annually. This trend appears
to be accelerating as the Government recently announced the hiring of 500 more Border
Guards to work in the Attiki area around Athens with the main objective of locating
illegal smuggling rings and immigrants. This will necessitate five new Border Guard
Departments where there is increased criminal activity by illegal immigrants
(Kathimerini English Edition 2002a: 3). A similar expansion in the role and purview of
the Special Guards has also taken place. In many cases, Special Guards have taken on
auxiliary functions such as accompanying regular Helleniki Astynomia personnel on
patrols, responding to alarms or guarding private pay-duty sites such as banks and
jewelry stores.
What do these developments mean for assessing neo-liberal ideology in the context
39
The application is decided by a specially constituted committee, whose members are specified by the Law:
one Deputy Public Prosecutor at the Areios Pagos (Greek Supreme Court), one member of the Highest Council
for Personnel Selection (ASEP) and any director of Police Directorates at the Ministry of Public Order (i.e.,
a high-ranking commissioned officer).
294
of policing for Greece? Obviously, the Special and Border Guards represent a
significant milestone in the history of Hellenic policing. They represent a uniquely
innovative Greek solution to fiscal problems encountered by governments throughout
the Western world. As special policing concerns have arisen, specialized policing
bodies have been created. These bodies, however, have remained very much stateowned and managed. This pattern is unlike what is happening in other national contexts
where private security has taken over security responsibilities for key state facilities
ranging from nuclear power plants, correctional facilities and even immigration detention centres (see Rigakos 2000b). Instead, the Greek Border and Special Guards have
been subsumed within an existing single-state policing umbrella. At the same time, the
Guards are temporary contract workers and do not have the job security of their fellow
patrolmen in the Helleniki Astynomia. Thus, on the one hand, these developments
represent a marked expansion of the state in its investment in policing, possibly making
Greece the leader in the Western world for ratio of police to population. On the other
hand, the state has hedged its risks by making these special services contractual and
temporary these specialized guards cannot participate in collective bargaining and are
not part of the police union. They are elite, militaristic and important to the preservation
of national sovereignty in both the hinterland40 and at crucial state installations in the
interior. Yet tomorrow they could just as easily be scaled back or phased out altogether
if the government perceives that the risks have abated.
The Rebirth of Municipal Policing

Since the 1984 reforms, Greece has supposedly been under a single-state police force;
but 11 years after municipal policing was ostensibly subsumed by the amalgamated
Helleniki Astynomia, municipal policing has once again reappeared. By 2002, the state
had acquiesced to the demands of municipalities to organize their own policing services
in order to undertake minor local duties. The initial step towards the re-emergence of
municipal policing was made under the auspices of the 1994 government reform of the
Municipal and Communal Code. The new Code enabled municipal authorities to
organize a special service (the Municipal Police), whose mission is to supervise the
smooth application of legislation governing various activities within the boundaries of
a municipality, particularly of regulations regarding construction, parking, excessive
noise, pollution, sanitation, the issuing of trading licenses, and the operation of theaters,
cinemas, recreation grounds and other leisure centres (Art. 24 of Presidential Decree
410/1995).
The novelty of these provisions is merely in the name Municipal Police; otherwise,
municipal officers were authorized to exercise these powers about ten years before the
introduction of the 1995 Code (To Vima 1999). Initially, only about 40 municipalities
were active in organizing their police, because the organization of a new special force
is an expensive enterprise, especially for small municipalities (To Vima 1996). As far
we have been able to find out, only the Municipality of Athens made active steps
40
In many cases, the Border Guards, who are also local to the northern parts of Greece, are the only life line
available to elderly Greeks in secluded border villages that were overrun by foreign economic refugees in the
mid-1990s. The Border Guards provide unofficial services such as delivery of medicines, food, paying bills
at banks and acting as an ambulatory service. The Border Guards are thus an extremely important body for
maintaining Greek sovereignty along the border. The Guards are also equipped with submachine guns
(Kathimerini English Edition 2002b: 3).
295
toward the creation of a special service, and made visible its existence by providing
municipal officers with special uniforms, patrol cars and motorcycles, in characteristic
olive and yellow color. However, the implementation of the local government reform
in the mid-1990s, which involved the amalgamation of smaller communities into single
municipalities, together with a significant re-allocation of powers from the central
government to the local authorities, generated a renewed interest in municipal policing.
Art. 11, Para. 3 of Law 2503/1997 empowered the Ministers of the Interior, of Public
Order, of the Environment and of Public Health to issue a statutory instrument
prescribing the exact powers of, and governing the procedures to be followed by, the
Municipal Police, as well as the qualification, duties, rights and obligations of officers.
This was a serious indication that the organization of Municipal Police forces was
genuinely within the Governments intentions, because the details connected to the
creation of a new police force do not, under Greek administrative law, fall within the
jurisdiction of local authorities, but rather require legislation specifically empowering
them to undertake the project. That is also why the decision of the Municipality of
Athens to make its police particularly visible appeared extremely controversial, and
attracted much criticism for being largely cosmetic, given that those uniformed officers
had no other visible police power than issuing parking tickets. By 2000, Municipal
Police forces were present in nearly all the large cities of Greece, including Athens,
Piraeus, Thessaloniki, Kallithea, Iraklion and the City of Rodos. The need for some
organizing principle for these forces was already visible because they varied
significantly in appearance, methods, and quality of training and personnel. Moreover,
citizens were becoming more aware of the existence of these forces, but when they
called for their services found that, in most cases, the Helleniki Astynomia had to be
summoned in order for action to be taken (To Vima 1996: 45; To Vima 1999).
In March 2000, new legislation gave Municipal Police the status of special
investigative officers in matters within their jurisdiction (according to Art. 34 of the
Code of Penal Procedure). Art. 26, Para. 1 of Law 2819/2000 specified that officers of
the Municipal Police could undertake actions within the context of summary investigation under the instructions of the Public Prosecutor. Thus, for a considerable range of
cases, the Municipal Police no longer needed to defer to the Helleniki Astynomia. After
prolonged negotiations,41 a statutory instrument was issued in February 2002 that
prescribed the jurisdiction of the Municipal Police, its powers regarding matters of their
jurisdiction, organization and methods of service, recruitment procedure and the
qualifications of candidate officers, and training of cadets and officers already in service
(Presidential Decree 23/2002).42
41
Negotiations between the Government and the Central Association of Municipalities and Communes
regarding the provisions of a statutory instrument under Art. 26 of Law 2819/2000 about the uniform
organization, powers, and methods of the municipal police forces was quite contentious. The Governments
reluctance to give too much was inspired partly by the skepticism of the public police toward this development
and partly by considerations regarding the quality of training of officers already in the service (To Vima 2002a).
42
Municipal Police personnel include special uniformed officers (i.e., general duties officers) and specialized
personnel, who are employed in technical, administrative and support services. The Decree prescribes that
Municipal Police forces should be organized with a view to ensure 24-hour operation throughout the week, to
keep formal records of any incident reported to them, and to be in a constant state of readiness in order to
intervene speedily (Art. 15, Para. 8). In the case of specialized personnel, the Decree prescribes that the selection
is effected under procedures controlled by the ASEP. Other officers of the Municipal Police are recruited by
means of a special selection procedure that not controlled by each municipality, but by the Administrative
Region to which each municipality belongs. Obviously, the scope of these provisions is to eliminate any political
interventions in the selection of officers. The candidate must apply for a vacant post in a specific municipality
296
Municipal Police officers are uniformed, carry a badge and a special identification
card, and are authorized to exercise all Municipal Police powers within the boundaries
of the municipality. These officers can also perform searches of any public or private
premise, especially in exercizing their duties pertaining to environmental pollution
violations. The searches can be performed regardless of consent (Art. 15, Para. 3 of Law
2819/2000). Should the Municipal Police acknowledge any violation, they are authorized to impose any sanctions prescribed by the law, and, if any violation also constitutes
a criminal offence, they are required to report it to the Helleniki Astynomia. They are
also empowered to act as special investigative officers in the context of criminal
investigation, under the instruction of the Public Prosecutor. As regards the power of
arrest, the formulation of the Decree leaves some ambiguity: undoubtedly, officers of
the Municipal Police do not have the status of general investigative officers, who are
par excellence authorized to perform arrests. However, it is not clear whether they do
have the status of a police officer, who is also authorized to perform an arrest of an
offender in the act of committing a crime, according to Art. 275 of the Code of Penal
Procedure. Need this status be explicitly awarded by the law, or is status implied by the
description of Municipal Police authorities? This is a problem that has not been explored
by legal theory, but there is no doubt that it will also come under judicial review in the
near future, once the Municipal Police begin to exercise their powers according to the
Decree.
Thus, while their specific criminal investigation powers, arrest powers and future roles
are not clear, Municipal Police officers have, at least formally, returned to Greece. What
is clear, however, is that municipal law enforcement never actually ever left for there
were always persons involved in the general enforcement of city ordinances and bylaws,
even before the new legislation. In any case, the formal re-emergence of municipal
policing is far too recent a development to draw any conclusions about it. In the general
historical context of urban Greece, the new Municipal Police may represent yet another
phase in city policing. In the context of the 1984 amalgamation, there is some evidence
of the strategic divestment of the central state in security provision for the whole of
Greece. Will municipalities rush to hire new recruits or will they largely continue to
depend on the Helleniki Astynomia? Does the Government want to see a new Municipal
Police service emerge (albeit more circumscribed than the Astynomia Poleon) in order
to cut back in its expenditures in urban areas? This is still very much unknown, but if
the answers to these questions prove to be in the affirmative, it will weigh heavily in
any assessment of the ideological advance of neo-liberal thinking for Greek policing.43
Footnote continued
and be a high school graduate or a university degree according to the position for which he or she applies.
Candidates holding a drivers license and speaking a foreign language are given some priority. The selection
procedure also includes health and physical examinations. The selection committee is comprised of the General
Director of the Administrative Region, a higher civil servant of the Administrative Region, a commissioned
officer of the Helleniki Astynomia appointed by the General Directorate of the Region and one gymnastics
instructor appointed by the Director of Secondary Education of the Administrative Region. The committee is
authorized to review all applications, supervise the tests and rank all candidates according to their qualifications
and test results. The committee appoints to each municipality as many candidates as necessary in order to fill
all vacancies, starting from the candidate at the top of the list (Art. 12 of Presidential Decree 23/2002). Successful
candidates are required to follow a training programme that includes a four-month term of seminars about
subjects taught at the Patrolmen Schools of the Police Academy, and a second four-month term in which subjects
specific to the Municipal Police are taught. The training programme is organized and supervised by the Helleniki
Astynomia Police Academy (Art. 16).
43
At the moment there are no published data regarding the total number of personnel employed in Municipal
Police forces. As far as we have been able to gather, no appointments have been made yet under the provisions
297
Privatization, the Olympics and November 17

At first glance, privatization, preparations for the 2004 Olympics in Athens and the
recent successes of the Helleniki Astynomia against the November 17 terrorist organization seem to have little in common for informing our analysis of the future of Greek
policing. Yet any student of the political economy of the Greek state and its police
recognizes their intimate linkages. Symbolically, all three developments point to
Greeces increasing interconnectedness to international commerce and global capitalist
interests and the profound effect this will continue to have on Greek sovereignty in the
future. It is particularly poignant (and very much related) that in preparation for
Greeces first Olympics of the television era, the state is exorcising the ghosts of its not
too distant dictatorial past. As international pressure bore down on Greece to make the
2004 Olympics safe especially in the aftermath of United States President George W.
Bushs declared war on terrorism the Helleniki Astynomia and the Ministry of
Public Order began consultations in earnest, specifically targeting N17. It now seems
that the last symbolic militant vestiges of Greek resistance to foreign interests and the
call for armed revolutionary struggle have been dramatically swept away during the
summer of 2002 and this has been under the watchful eye of the American Federal
Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency, and Britains Scotland Yard,
who were invited to Athens to assist the Helleniki Astynomia by the Ministry of Public
Order.
Of course, long before this, Greece was well on its way to multi-agency policing and
transnational cooperation as a signatory to the Schengen Agreement (Law 2514/1997)
and, after Law 2605/1998, as a member of Europol (see also Sheptycki 1995). As
perhaps the greatest international spectacle in the contemporary world, the Olympic
Games represent a serious challenge to security provision. The preparations needed far
exceed the present capacities and resources of the organizing city. The organization of
the Games requires a dramatic reallocation of present police resources. The security
plan for the Olympics must provide for the manipulation of an unusually high number
of people, athletes and other member of delegations, journalists, and spectators in and
around the City of Athens and its suburbs. Moreover, the plan has to provide for
emergency situations, such as accidents and natural disasters, the control of access to
premises and grounds, potential public order situations and, of course, the possibility of
a terrorist attack. Especially after September 11, the planning of security measures and
other preparations in order to prevent any terrorist action have become top priorities
(Ethnos 2002).
At present, it is not known how large a security force will be needed or how it is
going to be allocated. According to initial calculations, based on the experiences of
Greek police officers from the Sydney Olympics, a force of about 50,000 will be needed
to ensure security and order at the time of the event (Ta Nea 2000: 19). This number
exceeds the present total force of the Helleniki Astynomia, and even if present number
sufficed, it would not be possible to reallocate all police officers to tasks connected with
the security of the Games. It has been reported by the press that the Army will assign
about 7,000 soldiers in guarding and patrol tasks, at the specific request of the Helleniki
Astynomia (Ethnos 2002).
There has also been another important development in connection with the order and
of Presidential Decree 23/2002. No statistics regarding public spending on Municipal Police forces or on the
activities of these forces are currently available.
298
security issues of the Games. Article 5 of Law 2833/2000 created a special unit of the
Helleniki Astynomia responsible for the planning and coordination of all involved
agencies in matters of order and security during the 2004 Olympic Games. This unit
(the Olympic Games Security Directorate) will operate continuously in the lead up the
Games, as well as during the Games. The organization of the Directorate presents some
particularities compared to other services of the Helleniki Astynomia: it may employ
under contract its own specialized, scientific and administrative personnel, or it may
request that personnel of other public services or agencies be attached to it for indefinite
time. Another interesting feature is that the Directorate has been empowered to
coordinate and instruct forces that do not belong to the Helleniki Astynomia. According
to Law 2833/2000, these forces may be Army units assigned to security tasks, a body
of volunteers currently under creation, and private police forces, which will be
contracted for this purpose. Of course, the first Border and Special Guards hired in the
initial years of the formation of the special forces will, only months before the Olympic
Games have undergone contractual evaluations and renewals. The heavily armed
Guards will surely play an important role in security for the event. Assisting the Army,
Special Guards, Border Guards and regular Helleniki Astynomia will be an assortment
of multinational security firms.
Until 1997, private security firms were regarded as an unusual phenomenon in Greek
policing. In fact, the majority of these firms have barely been in existence for a decade.
Yet private security companies are mushrooming throughout Greece, and most multinationals (such as Wackenhut and Group 4) have established themselves. This development seems to have taken both the authorities and students of Greek policing by
surprise. Even today, there are few reliable statistics on private police: the National
Statistical Service of Greece currently keeps no records about these firms, while in the
future data are likely to be generated from the taxation archives of the Ministry of
Economics.44
Legislation governing the operation of private firms was not introduced until 1997.45
The legislation sets a number of requirements for the operation of a private security
firm. The most important one being special licensing, renewable for a period of five
years. There are several restrictions concerning the granting of such a license that
reflect, even here, the insistence of the state in maintaining hegemonic control over
internal security. According to Art. 2 of Law 2518/1997, it can only be granted by the
authorities of the Helleniki Astynomia to an individual (not a corporation) who must be
a Greek national. Moreover, the license holder must have fulfilled their military
obligations in the Greek armed forces and have no criminal record. When a company
submits an application, the same qualifications apply to all managers, members of the
board and shareholders who possess or acquire more than 25 per cent of the stock (Art.
44
The statistics we provide earlier in this article have never been previously published and were collected
by the Ministry of Public Order pursuant to Law [2518/1997] requiring private contract security agencies to
register.
45
According to Law 2518/1997, these firms may be only active in the field of security services, specifically
in: (a) the supervision or guarding of mobile or real estate property goods and installations; (b) the protection
of persons; (c) the protection of spectacles, exhibitions, conferences, competitions and sports events; (d) the
secure transportation of money, values and valuable objects; (e) the installation, maintenance and supervision
of the function of machines and systems of security and alarm, apart from those installed on automobiles; (f)
the exploitation of centres of reception, control and transmission of alarm signals; (g) the control with special
devices of passengers and baggage in airports and ports, with the permission of the competent police or port
authority; and (h) the undertaking of study and design of security systems (Art. 1 of Law 2518/1997).
299
2, Para. 2 of Law 2518/1997). To facilitate supervision, it is obligatory that all the

shares of these companies be issued in the stockholders name. This particular formulation is not altogether unusual in Greek company law (albeit very much alien in North
America and other European Union nations), especially when there are public interests
connected with the operation and activities of a company. The actual operation of these
firms is also subject to a number of restrictions regarding the name of the company and
the elements pertaining to its identification by the public.46
These private security bodies have no special police powers. In their actions they
have the status, rights and obligations of any other citizen, and the legal basis for their
services is the exercise of rights on behalf of the individual or company who receives
their services. In exercising the property rights of their employers, the private police, as
with any other citizen, have the right of defence according to Art. 284 of the Greek
Civil Code, which prescribes that the defence that one must undertake to repulse a
present and unlawful attack against himself or other person does not constitute an
unlawful act. Moreover, private security officers have the right to arrest an individual
in the act of committing a crime against the person or property under their protection
(according to Art. 275, Para. 1 of the Code of Penal Procedure). Of course, this right
belongs to every citizen and is not specific to security officers.47
Finally, Greeces rapid integration into new transnational arrangements of security
has already yielded a spectacular success against domestic terrorism. At the time of
writing of this article, the Helleniki Astynomia, working in close cooperation with
American and British agencies, has managed to arrest 13 persons suspected of participating in the notorious November 17 terrorist group. The group has been active since
1975 and has been responsible for the assassinations of foreign (especially American)
and Greek officials, police and military officers, businessmen and of one Member of
Parliament belonging to the Conservative (ND) Party. It has also claimed responsibility
for numerous bombings and at least three brash break-ins at military and police
facilities, where weapons and ammunition were stolen (To Vima 2002b: 328).
November 17 has been the most prominent of the 11 terrorist groups known to be
active since the 1974 restoration of democracy in Greece. All of the groups have
46
Specifically, it must be made clear to the public that it is a private company that is offering security services;
its name must not include the term police; it must not use flags and symbols used by the Helleniki Astynomia.,
nor is the company allowed to use colours or sound signals similar to those used by the Helleniki Astynomia,
especially on vehicles. The uniforms of personnel are subject to the specific approval of public police authorities
(Art. 4). There is a separate procedure for granting a work permit to the personnel of private security firms;
the permit is valid for 5 years and is only awarded to individuals who satisfy similar qualifications to those
specified for company owners. When on duty, private police officers must be equipped with a special
identification card which must include a photograph of the owner and must be visible at all times. The law
specifies explicitly that it must be worn on the upper left torso (Art. 6). It is interesting to note that all violations
of the provisions of Law 2518/1997 are sanctioned administratively and constitute criminal offences.
47
However, as the particular provision stands, it poses several problems as to its interpretation and application
by the private police. The provision specifically states that the arrested person must be delivered to the Public
Prosecutor immediately. For practical reasons, any citizen or group of citizens effecting an arrest would deliver
the arrested person to the police first; then the police would take over and deliver the arrested person to the
Public Prosecutor. Private police officers, however, are trained and, what is more important, adequately
equipped to restrain an offender effectively and deliver him to the Public Prosecutor. Should the public police
arrive, are they required by law to deliver him to them rather than the Public Prosecutor? Can the public police
demand that the person be delivered to them? There are no obvious answers to these questions, and this particular
provision has not been explored by criminal law theorists (Karras 1995: 516). As to the rest of police powers,
private police officers have no authority to perform any other actions of an investigative nature unless the
individuals involved give their consent explicitly. Generally, the activity of private security companies so far
has attracted only minimal interest from the perspective of legal theory (Papathanasopoulos 2000).
300
affiliated with extreme Left ideologies and have advocated the necessity for armed
revolutionary struggle. However, November 17 has appeared to be more consistent in
its convictions against foreign intervention and presence in Greece, and has been, by
far, more active in performing actions against targets fitting these criteria. The group
appears to have a hierarchical structure and a clear division of tasks between its
members, a characteristic accentuated by the coexistence of two generations within
the 27 year-old organization (i.e., founding fathers and freshmen). Based on what
is has been made public during the summer of 2002, the possibility that November 17
maintained links with other terrorist groups cannot be excluded. The group financed its
operation through armed robberies, and stored its equipment in several apartments in
Athens and Thessaloniki (To Vima 2002c).
While the Greek Government has been at pains to claim this success for its national
police, by the end of summer 2002 it was clearly evident, through repeated journalistic
accounts, that the Helleniki Astynomia benefited largely from the help of American and
British specialists. It also appears that the investigation gained impetus from records
kept by the secret services of the former Peoples Republic of Germany, although the
exact nature and importance of these records is still unknown. At any rate, even at this
very early stage, there can be no doubt that this success has been made possible through
the convergence of expertise and intelligence from various sources beyond the national
boundaries of Greece. As far as politics are concerned, the Greek Government may be
able to articulate this development in fairly traditional terms, since it provided the
resources for the operation as well as an insightful Minister, willing and able to
coordinate the whole project and who has been lauded by many journalists and political
observers:
Since the end of the military dictatorship in Greece perhaps even as far back as the end of the civil
war the Public Order Ministry had been a difficult, rather unpopular posting, as demonstrated by the
failure of any of its leaders to attain a leading political role. Chrysochoidiss aim to be the exception
is not groundless. In an era of TV democracy, where it is the norm for politicians to invest in their
image and in public relations, Chrysochoidis, relatively thrifty in words, preferred to invest in the more
reliable and long-term currency of the political marker his actions. In this way, he raised standards
in politics, sending a message that resonated throughout the political spectrum. (Kathimerini English
Edition 2002c)
The success against November 17 can be viewed in various ways. It can be seen as
the penultimate triumph of the state in reaffirming its monopoly over the use of violence
through its continued war against Leftist extremism. This means that the Hellinki
Astynomia acts as a triumphant tool of national sovereignty and state legitimation. On
the other hand, by playing up foreign intervention, the national police may be cast as
pawns of imperialist forces, and with them the Greek Government. These are historic
tensions in the saga of Greek policing often reflected in the sentiments of either rightor left-wing political posturing. Even today, the KKE (Greek Communist Party)
maintains that November 17 was either originally set up or subsequently infiltrated and
supported by Greek or foreign services to legitimize surveillance and repression against
the Left.
CONCLUSIONS
Any analysis of the history of an institution will surely be fraught with an array of
teleological pitfalls, over-statements of varying degrees, and the general problem of
301
interpreting events though a viewpoint borne out of whatever epistemic and theoretical
determinism happens to colour the observable universe of the day (Foucault 1972;
Calinicos 1995). This is undoubtedly more true in interpreting political events affecting
police organizations (see Reiner 2001). In contemporary social theory, much discussion
has revolved around the divestment of the state from providing direct security (e.g.,
OMalley 1996; Rose 1996; Garland 1996; Bayley and Shearing 1996). This process is
identified as part of a general political philosophy of neo-liberalism, wherein governments tend to steer, rather than row, civil society.
In this article, we have already discussed what we would consider to be general
trends that seem to undermine the relevance of such theoretical claims for policing in
Greece. First, as a fundamental empirical barometer of state investment, the Helleniki
Astynomia has been growing in size rather than shrinking. Second, the historical
tendency of Greek policing has generally been toward increased centralization, amalgamation and the proliferation of more service provision. Third, the state has maintained
a tight grip on the overall organization of security as it directly effects state sovereignty
in a generally unstable geopolitical region. This can be seen in the constitution of the
Border and Special Guards and even government requirements that owners of private
security firms are Greek nationals who have fulfilled their military service. In any case,
the private security sector is still a very minor player in the overall policing of Greece.
Finally, even when new threats emerge, the tendency has been toward the development
of specialized services within the rubric of a single state police force. There are, of
course, examples of neo-liberalism making inroads into Greek policing, including
especially the hiring of thousands of contract cops in the Border and Special Guard
services. In addition, the state has been increasingly pressurized by transnational
security interests, who have taken up station in Athens in anticipation of the forthcoming Olympic Games. This foreign presence, however cooperative and complimentary, nonetheless perceptually shifts the grounds for the state in reinforcing its claims
to national sovereignty over security provision.
It is perhaps too easy to point to Greece as either an exception to the general trend
in policing toward post-Keynesian thinking or to make too much of the geopolitical
circumstances of Greek state sovereignty. Has the fact that Greece has been governed
by PASOK (socialist/social democrats) for 18 of the 21 years since 1981 played a role?
Has PASOK managed to buffer the Greek public service from these powerful global
trends? This is quite unclear. What we do know is that there are other nations where
privatization of policing has also been very slow. DeWaards (1999) study of European
Union Member States and other selected countries reveals that Greece is joined by other
southern European nations (Italy, Spain, Portugal and France) in higher per capita
public policing and lower levels of employment in the private security sector. However,
even in DeWaards study, Greece appears to be an extreme case.48 Other national
contexts will invoke a whole series of political and historical contingencies that led to
this current state of affairs. In formulating policing theory, therefore, we must become
far more cognizant of divergent national contexts as political philosophies, social
movements and global trends in governmental thinking will surely be transformed,
frustrated or even negated in certain national contexts.
48
Although DeWaards (1999) figure of 2,000 security employees for Greece in 1997 is surely a gross
under-estimate given data presented in this article for 2001.
302
Acknowledgements
This research was financially supported by the Onassis Foreigners Fellowship Program
and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Grant No. 41020000145).
The authors would like to thank Dr Spinellis, Ms Tsavaras, Ms Tsiotsiou, Mr Kampanakis, Mr Roussakis, Mr Pazaropoulos and family, and Dr Stergioulis for his
comments on a previous version of this article.
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Policing and Society, 2003, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING:

Department of Law, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada; iiSchool of Law, University of

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

organization and future direction in an era of increasing globalization and neo-liberal

threats to its existence. Rather than reflecting changes toward post-Keynesian or

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

Post-liberation Ottonian Continental Policing, 18331906

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING

signed by the Minister (todays equivalent of prime minister) I. Kolletis, dated 13

In 1884, this force had 332 officers.

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

One Gendarmerie, 19061920

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING

The Return of a City Police, 19201984

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING

Patrolman/private of the Chorofylaki

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

commissioned32 officers, and special review of applicants for higher commissioned

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING

Police personnel per 100,000 population

*Data up to 2 July 2002.

Authorized strength for Greek police forces

Source: various Presidential Decrees.

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

Spending on policing as a percentage of the national budget.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING

Border Guards and Special Guards: A Neo-liberal Solution?

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

The Rebirth of Municipal Policing

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

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G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING

2, Para. 2 of Law 2518/1997). To facilitate supervision, it is obligatory that all the

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GREEK POLICING

G.S. RIGAKOS AND G. PAPANICOLAOU

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