“The systemic nature of police violence in Greece”

On the occasion of the recent publication of the book “The systemic nature of police violence in Greece” (Topos Publications), Anastasia Tsoukala presents her years of research on this issue and discusses with lawyer Annie Paparrousou and the audience.

The book analyses police violence from a perspective that has not yet been explored by the Greek or international academic community. Taking an interactive approach, it focuses on a multifactorial field, constituted by a web of police, governmental and judicial relations, to show how its dynamics reinforce police violence, undermine attempts to control it, and create political and legal disorder.

The intersection of the motives of police behaviour with institutional public discourse or silence, the rationale of disciplinary and prosecutorial investigations or the absence of investigation, judicial decisions and police practices of avoiding accountability shows how their interaction results in the securing of a regime of effective impunity that leads to the perpetuation of police violence.

The analysis of the manifestation and management of police violence in 136 incidents is based, inter alia, on 128 interviews conducted with complainants – parliamentarians, journalists, lawyers, protesters, ordinary citizens, members of socially vulnerable groups – or their advocates and eyewitnesses.

Anastasia Tsoukala is a Principal Researcher at Université Paris Cité. She was Associate Professor of Criminology at Université Paris-Saclay and Vice President at the Centre for Security Studies. She works on the design and implementation of homeland security policies in Europe, as well as on the social construction of threat.

A lawyer in Athens, Annie Paparrousou has dealt with issues of police violence and arbitrariness at the criminal level.

* The presentation and discussion are conducted in the greek language.