How does one become a criminal in Serbia?

Photo illustration: Telegraf/Private archive/MUP/Facebook/Kristijan Kiki Golubovic

The public was left in shock on Sunday at noon, when an SUV exploded in a mafia showdown in the middle of Omladinskih Brigada Street in New Belgrade, killing Strahinja Stevanovic, who was previously well known to the Serbian police.

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This is just another in a series of mafia clashes that have shaken the capital over the last year.

Psychologist Aleksandra Jankovic spoke for Telegraf earlier about how one becomes a criminal in Serbia.

"Crime always has its time and its life. On the other hand, those are mostly people who became adults in a very critical period and who are practically accustomed to scenes of violence and various aggressive behaviors, both by their parents and by some social idols. They are old enough now, so if they have that potential and various unresolved ideas and conflicts, they will go down in that history themselves," Aleksandra Jankovic pointed out.

As she says, there will always be crime, it's just that it's sometimes intensified due to frequent clashes between people who belong to the same milieu. What is different compared to the 1990s is that today's so-called criminals are also big stars on Instagram.

"In general, the internet is a channel over which there is no serious degree of control. Content that should not be shown on television is present here in the worst possible form. Also, presence on social networks often implies identification with the values ​​that are promoted there. Quite a number of these values, especially when it comes to the female part of the population, has to do with glorification of prostitution and of rapid acquisition of money," she continues.

Advice to parents

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In order not to have mafia clashes in the streets in 10 to 15 years, parents should take more control over their children, what they follow and what they admire. Words like, "these are those new generations," "we don't understand technology" are just plain justification, not the reality.

"If you are interested in your child, you will talk to them, become literate and ask to see what they are interested in on the networks. Justifying yourself by being ignorant or unable to control everything they do is just shifting responsibility onto someone else."

That is why it would be good for parents to dedicate a little more time to their children, because many of those guys who have been knee-deep in crime for a long time can be said to be well-mannered.

"Superficially, they act like all other young people, but they do not live that way and do not function that way. Parents should ask themselves what their children's idols are doing, how come they're suddenly driving luxury cars and spending the kind of money that is unimaginable to them. Unfortunately, a number of parents probably choose to look the other way, allowing the child become 'capable' just like their idol. What might be suspicious looks to them like the result of a skill," she says.

Who are young women who knowingly get involved with criminals?

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Finally, we come to the famous stereotype - a girl or young woman who is beautiful and uses her body as a business object, and who always goes together perfectly with a criminal, i.e., a bandit, as both are prone to getting rich overnight.

Well - after so many cases when some of them got killed through not fault of their own, aren't today's girls afraid of relationships with criminals?

"I know from clinical practice about various examples, but I literally asked the girls who were surrounded by dangerous guys if it occurred to them that they could become collateral damage in a mafia showdown. As many as 90 percent of them told me, 'What do I care', and that their goal is to becomr famous and be in the show business. It's a very self-destructive model because they don't really think about anything, including their health, or even their life," psychologist Jankovic concluded in her interview for Telegraf.

EXTREMELY DISTURBING FOOTAGE:

(Telegraf.rs)