Order trumps Law

Following last week's policing fiasco in Athens in which a group of 40 youths went through the upscale Athens shopping district of Kolonaki, smashing shop windows, cars and banks within spitting distance of hundreds of officers on duty, the ruling New Democracy government has announced that it wants to change the law to penalise more severely people who cover their faces during a crime (just wait for next year's Carnavali!!!) and to abolish the asylum laws that prevent police entering university grounds without the permission of the dean.

How exactly such measure will deal with the raising level of crime in the country is a little hazy, but still, government ministers can sound tough on TV and that is what really matters. On the other hand the mundane job of actually detecting and preventing crime seems to be a matter of little import as seen by the fact that over the last week or two there has been a spate of ATM thefts here in Thessaloniki.

Now you's think that yanking a cash dispenser, weighing who knows how much out of a building would be an easy offence to prevent. I mean it's not as if you can slip the machine in your pocket or jump in the back of a fast car with it, now is it? Yet there have been a number of successful and unsuccessful incidence by thieves using cranes. I mean how fast can you make your getaway in a truck? So far there have been no arrests, no details or descriptions have been released, no calls for eye witnesses etc, etc, etc. I'm sure that the culprits must be thinking that they are onto a winner here since they have tried the same trick three times in less than two weeks.

But as I've realised the Greek police don't do "Law". "Order", yes and plenty of it. But "Law", no thanks, too much like hard work if you ask me.

UPDATE

The government is considering making insulting a public official a criminal offence and punishing people who wear a mask during crime with up to 10 years extra on their sentence. BTW The Agrotiki bank in the Athens suburb of Dafni was robbed this morning for the fourth time in a month.