The negative stereotypes against the Romani make up a colossal list. At the top of it, ever since the Romani entered Europe centuries ago, is the conviction that they are thieves.
Does thievery occur within Roma communities? The honest answer is “yes.” This is also the incomplete and lazy answer.
Before we tell you about the values and beliefs held by the Romani regarding thievery, we will list some better questions to ask for anyone who wants to understand the context and the facts. And we will give answers.
A quick “Are the Romani thieves” Q&A
Are the Romani more likely to commit petty theft compared to other ethnicities?
Roma communities that live in poverty are likely to more often find themselves with other people’s wallets. Studies show that poverty and social exclusion contribute to higher rates of criminal activity among Roma populations, just as they do among other populations living in poverty.
Have I heard this before? It sounds familiar.
These same factors apply to other communities of color, like for example Black and Hispanic communities in the United States who face the same racial stereotypes as the Romani when it comes to crime and violence.
These stereotypes rest on the idea that darker skin somehow makes a person more likely to thirst after your earrings or wallet. “It’s just how they are,” goes such thinking.
In reality, this is how poverty is. It’s not the ethnos, race, or skin color that makes people steal. Poverty makes them steal.
Why are people of color more likely to be living in poverty?
People of color face social exclusion, discrimination, and multiple systemic barriers to quality education, employment, and health care. This effect is compounded generation after generation. The origin stories may vary a little - an invaded territory here, a genocide there, some slavery here, some violence and forceful assimilation there. But the result is pretty much the same: people of color tend to find themselves in a society that weaponizes laws and institutions against them and then blames them for the side-effects.
How does this look for the Romani? Here is a personal example of just one problem that is impacting Roma communities nationwide here in Bulgaria.
Most members of our Roma community have lost the right to have an ID card (a mandatory document here in the EU, similar to a passport.) Without an ID card, a person cannot sign an employment contract or a rental contract. They cannot buy a car. They cannot sign up their children for daycare. They cannot receive medical care. If a police officer catches you without an ID card, they can hold you in jail for 24 hours.
Why can’t our Roma friends and relatives have ID cards? Because the mayor erased their official address registration when he demolished their houses in the segregated community (called “mahala”) they’ve been living in for the past century. Municipality and government officials are then unlawfully but systematically refusing to issue ID cards without an address registration.
Why did the mayor demolish the houses? Because they were deemed “illegal” even though the Roma community had taken steps to officially “legalize” them. This mahala, like most Roma ghettos in Bulgaria and Europe, originated in the outskirts of the city as a result of forceful exclusion of the Romani. Now, a century later, the city grew around it and, yet again, the society wants the Romani to go away.
There is nothing new or original in this approach. Roma communities have been chased away, their homes burned down and demolished, for centuries. Read more about this in our piece below.
What happens to a Roma thief?
They go to prison. They serve long sentences. Before that, they have a brush or two with policemen who are all too happy and excited to be dishing out justice.
Among the many racial slurs, the policemen and prison guards have an interesting derogatory term for the Roma thieves, here in Bulgaria. Кокошкари, pronounced kokoshkari, which translates to “chicken-men”, as in “men who steal chicken.” In other words, men who aim too low and steal too little. So little, that it’s funny. And yet, enough to spend years in a prison cell.
Our criminal justice system is unforgiving of petty theft committed by a Roma person but it doesn’t work in such decisive ways when it comes to crimes committed by the “elite” or well-connected people. Just in the span of a few months we’ve had two cold-blooded murders by ex-military, several fatal car accidents caused by sheer arrogance and drugs or alcohol, multiple cases of brutal violence against women. We are also a country stewing in corruption and reaping the consequences of stolen national resources, stolen EU funds, stolen money, taxes, pensions, savings. When it comes to any of these examples, our justice system seems to lose its mojo.
Meanwhile, a Roma man we know went to prison for stealing a lighter.
For an educated and witty analysis of this universal problem through an American lens, we recommend this resent episode of Jon Stewart’s Podcast “The Problem.”
What do the Romani think about theft?
The Romani today hold the same value system they have been holding for the past 1,000 years. They do not attach their souls to material possessions. They have zero interest in claiming anything that is not theirs. If they are not living in poverty, they will not steal. And when they do steal, they still little and they follow a code.
“The Romani steal to survive and to feed their children. It’s as simple as that,” says Pepi.
The stealing itself only happens from a source perceived as abundant. Wallets, for example, are stolen only from people who are visibly wealthy. The reason is only partially that the wallet is more likely to be full. A bigger reason is that the Romani avoid inflicting permanent harm. It’s in their culture to only take that which can recover. If they see, for example, an elderly woman putting her pension in her purse, she is not seen as a target. Romani who rob vulnerable people are a big exception and looked down upon by their own community.
Roma tribes applied these same value system during their nomadic days, before nomadism was outlawed across Europe. They were often persecuted, with the same zest we see today, for stealing chickens and letting their horses graze in other people’s land. Jan Yoors describes a conversation with a Roma boy about this exact thing in his book, “The Gypsies.”
“Putzina explained to me that stealing was not really a misdeed as long as it was limited to the taking of basic necessities, and not in larger quantities than were needed at that moment. It was the intrusion of a sense of greed, in itself, that made stealing wrong, for it made men slaves to unnecessary apetites or to their desire for possessions.
Gleaning a little dry wood for the fire, from the forest, was no misdeed. There so much of it, and anyway, if they did not take it, it was left to rot. Putting a few horses to pasture overnight in someone’s meadow was not that bad. Grass grew without the owner’s active contribution or effort.”
The Romani condemn greed but they don’t condemn theft the same way mainstream society does. Their understanding of possession and ownership is different.
Ironically, this does not make them the insatiable criminals that outsiders believe them to be. On the contrary, this makes them steal only when they are forced to and only enough to survive in the moment. So little that law enforcement mocks them as they walk into the prison cell.
“We lay on our backs and looked up into the starry sky. I felt humble and a little solemn. I noticed a shooting star and, eager to share this with Nanosh, pointed out to him where it had passed, far away. In a hushed, husky voice he told me never to do this again; for each star in the sky is a man on earth. When a star runs away it means that a thief takes flight, and by pointing a finger at a shooting star the man it represents is likely to be captured.”
Jan Yoors, “The Gypsies”
I see parallels of the Bedouin esp the Bdoul tribes. They are like the gypsies of the Bedouin. There are rumors of Indian roots. But everyone has different stories because maybe all of them came from everywhere because petra was the trading hub of the Levant. Everyone stopped in petra to trade. The Silk Road. Persia. Roman. Europe. The red Sea. I see how they “borrow”
Or steal small petty things that are balanced in severity. But I see the culture and how they move because they have each other and everything they need by sharing. If someone says I like your…. They’ll give it to you.