96 Race & Class 48(2) of Greek unskilled workers, whose monthly wages, they said, had remained the same over the previous ten years. The migrants also pose, according to the detectives, national security problems. The Albanians and the Romanians, two of the largest groups of migrants in the country according to the most recent national census in 2001, are almost entirely viewed negatively. The Albanians, in particular (apart from their being recognised by detectives as ‘hardworking’), were considered as ‘dangerous’, ‘criminals’, ‘thieves’, ‘murderers’, ‘rapists’ and so on, perceptions reminiscent of the British police’s view of the black community during the 1970s. In contrast to their perception of other migrant groups, Albanians were viewed by detectives as inherently criminal and violent. The detectives’ perceptions of Albanian migrants were saturated with phrases such as ‘thieves by birth’, ‘cold-blooded’, ‘killers by instinct’ and ‘born criminals’. Among other migrant groups, criminals were thought to make up a small segment but, in the case of Albanians, detectives believed that the majority were criminals. Similar attitudes have existed among British police forces with regard to black communities and Lea argues that these kinds of attitudes indicate an assumed link between race and criminality: While the police may be quite precise about what sub-groups of the white population they regard as being involved in particular types of crime, they may be far less precise in the case of the blacks, seeing them involved in crime as a racial group.16 It is also worth noting that Albanians have become the reference point for measuring the dangerousness of other groups of migrants, such as Poles. Albanian migrants are also seen as the embodiment of ungratefulness and untrustworthiness: When I was serving in Messinia, people used to look after the Albanians, to provide work, food and shelter. In the police station, there were two Albanians in custody and we used to buy bread for them and cans of meat, with money from our pockets. Some time after their deportation, they came back and raped the priest’s wife and daughter.17 Another theme that surfaces in the detectives’ view of Albanians is their physical strength. This perception appears to have its origins in the failure of the authorities to apprehend undocumented migrants in the rough, mountainous border country between Greece and Albania. The difficulty that the army (and, after 1998, the border guards) had in preventing these border crossings was explained away with the stereotype of the ‘Albanian superhuman’, an image, however, that is closer to an animal than to a human being.18 For example: Downloaded from http://rac.sagepub.com at Athens Univ. of Economics on June 25, 2007 © 2006 Institute of Race Relations. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.