Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/643092
14 "WHERE is the worst area for criminality in Malta? It is one of the first questions I ask my stu- dents as a lecturer…" Saviour Formosa is an associate professor who lectures criminolo- gy at the University of Malta. As it happens, I meet him for this inter- view in one of the localities that is often (mistakenly, as he will soon explain) cited as an answer to the above question: Valletta. "In many cases, the answer will have more to do with the offender than the offence," he goes on. "So places such as Bormla or Valletta might be suggested…" We are sitting outside a quiet café in South Street… and we both agree that the place does not in any way feel 'unsafe'. Nor, for that matter, does Bormla… even if it does happen to have one of the worst reputations as a 'crime hotspot'. Such perceptions, he adds, ex- ist for several reasons. "If there is a perception that more offend- ers live in Bormla, people would also assume that Bormla therefore has the highest rate of crime. But it doesn't. In fact, it doesn't even come close…" It is also debatable whether more offenders really do live in these ar- eas. "Up until recently, you could safely say that Valletta was home to one eighth of all the people who had ever been to prison in Malta. What this means in practice is that, for every eight people who have spent time in prison, one of them would be a resident of Val- letta. But we have to be careful with such definitions. It doesn't necessarily mean that that per- son would be originally from Val- letta…" Usually, it would be more a case that Valletta – and, at various times, also Bormla and other areas – offers cheaper rental accommo- dation, so it is likelier that people would take up residence there upon release from prison. In real terms, however this has no bear- ing at all on the crime rate in these localities. "Does it follow from the above statistic – which incidentally is no longer true, as most prison in- mates by far are now foreigners – that Valletta has eight times the crime rate of other localities? No, not at all. This can be statistically demonstrated…" Even if there may have been truth to such claims in years gone by, the country's crime profile has in any case changed completely in recent years. "Today, Qawra has overtaken these places as an area of interest to the criminologist, for various reasons. There is a multicultural environment, which is a very new phenomenon for Malta. You also have an annual population explo- sion in summer, which creates a seasonal residential phenom- enon…" This seasonality factor creates problems of its own. "For instance, you will get cases where the theft of, for instance, a necklace would be reported to the police a day or two before the owner – a tourist – leaves the island. This makes the crime harder for the police to investigate. They would have to bring the victim back to Malta to testify in court…" The statistics do indicate that Qawra has a higher rate of report- ed crime than elsewhere… and this rate has increased in recent years. But despite fluctuations in certain localities, Prof. Formosa nonetheless argues that Malta's crime rate has actually fallen over the same time period. This raises an apparent contra- diction. The statistics he cites in- dicate that Malta is getting safer. Why, then, is there an undeniable perception that the opposite is true? Why do surveys (including our own) indicate that people feel less safe, not more? "Such misconceptions unfortu- nately exist. There are many rea- sons, some more complex than others. But at a certain level, these misconceptions are being fuelled by the media, and also by political debate. The reality is that Malta has remained one of the safest countries in Europe by far, even considering the large volume of tourists we receive. Having said that, real crime does occur. And any crime that is committed is unwanted. There will always be a victim… even if the victim is none other than the Maltese state. I don't want to minimise the effect of crime, or pretend that it's not a problem. But yes, there is a gap- ing abyss between perception and reality… Here, Prof. Formosa points to- wards the recent spate of residen- tial thefts in Sliema as an exam- ple. "It reached a peak two years ago; but this 'peak' was fuelled by the perceptions of people on the ground… and above all, by the people who could shout the loud- est. At the time, I participated in a televised debate on the is- sue. One of the questions I asked was… would the uproar have been the same, had these crimes taken place in another locality? I don't think so. And Assistant Commis- sioner Silvio Valletta, who was on the same programme, agreed…" Sliema, he adds, has its own peculiarities. "What happened a couple of years ago was that you had a number of residents of the locality who were writing in the newspapers, and commenting under articles. You had a local council that was very vocal about the issue. It became a political is- sue. The ministry panicked… in the sense that it felt it had to react. And as a criminologist, I would ar- gue that all this attention actually aggravated the issue..." One of the effects was what criminologists refer to as 'dis- placement'. "The fuss that was made at the time made the offenders move away to other localities. Tech- nically, the criminality was dis- placed..." There are, however, other cir- cumstances where crime does actually go down without being displaced. "Previously, there was a single stretch of road – Drag- onara Road in St Julian's [con- necting Paceville to St George's Bay] which in years gone by used to account for one tenth of all the reported crime in Malta…." That is a spectacularly high inci- dence of crime, for a single road… "But the reasons had more to do with the conditions of the locality itself. Previously, the area was un- lit, and cars were allowed to park on both sides of the street, with no supervision of any kind. So when street lights were installed, and it was designated a no parking ar- ea… the level of crime dropped all the way down to zero." The high crime rate, then, was more down to the fact that Drag- onara Road offered unique oppor- tunities for crime to occur. "When these issues were addressed, the high proportion of crimes [mostly thefts from parked cars] did not move to, for instance, Swieqi… it stopped happening altogether." Prof. Formosa invites me to compare this to the spate of thefts in Sliema. "When the crimes stopped hap- pening in Sliema, we started get- ting reports of copycat crimes taking place in other localities: among them, Attard. So again, the perception was that crime was shooting up. This is not true, how- ever. Crime rose in one area, and dropped in another. On a national level, the number of reported crimes remained more or less the same..." A pattern begins to emerge from such situations: when people talk about crime rates going up, or Malta feeling less safe, it is usu- ally a very localised and temporary phenomenon. "So as far as the people who lived in those locali- ties were concerned, the percep- tion was that more crimes were being committed… but in actual fact, the opposite was true. You may be surprised by this, but when you look at the actual figures, the number of thefts from residences went down over the correspond- ing period... and it went down by a substantial percentage, too." Formosa adds that the displace- ment of such crimes also makes them harder for the police to solve. "In the case of the Sliema thefts, the criminals were eventually caught, and it turned out to be an international gang. Following the outcry, this gang retracted its 'sol- diers'… not to other parts of Mal- ta, but to other countries. They waited for the fuss to die down, and then they returned about a year later. This time, the police were prepared, and nabbed them. Had the police been allowed to get on with their work without any such outcry, the criminals would in all probability have been ar- rested much sooner. So ultimately, public perception has an impact on actual crime levels…" But this also seems to point to- wards a contradiction. Couldn't it also be argued that the outcry – even if based on a flawed per- ception – resulted in more police action, and therefore contributed to the drop in crime mentioned by Formosa himself? "Not exactly. There are a num- ber of reasons for the drop in re- ported crime. On a national level, there is more awareness, and there have also been changes to the way the police operate. In recent years there has been an increase in the number of policemen on the beat in various localities. Where, in years gone by, police work was perhaps more office-based, today there is a drive towards recruiting more police, and ensuring more active police presence…" Meanwhile, even if the statistics regularly indicate improvements, Formosa points out that political input has a habit of making mat- ters worse. "What really bothers me is that there are a lot of political state- ments, as well as PQs, which cre- ate a moral panic. If a politician wants to state that crime is go- ing up… base it on the facts. Ap- proach the police, approach crimi- nologists, approach people in the scene… because it is harder to Interview By Raphael Vassallo maltatoday, SUNDAY, 21 FEBRUARY 2016 What really bothers me is that there are a lot of political statements, as well as PQs, which create a moral panic. If a politician wants to state that crime is going up… base it on the facts MORAL PANIC We're already talking about virtual crime. Very soon, we will be talking about 'augmented reality' crime. Are the police prepared? Of course not NEW CRIME Crime and misconceptions