Foreign Detainees in Greek Prisons: A New Challenge to the Guardians of Human Rights

Abstract

There is a new population of non-national prisoners, drawn mainly from ex-socialist countries, entering Greek prisons. These foreign prisoners currently account for approximately twenty-five per cent of the total number of inmates in the country. Their introduction into an already overcrowded prison system has generated new problems both for the prisoners and for prison administrators. These new problems, however, appear at a time of high state deficits, and growing unemployment rates, which serve as disincentives to spend more money on unproductive endeavours such as imprisonment. Moreover, the familiar strategies designed to reduce imprisonment — community sanctions and diversion — are rarely used as the implementation of relevant laws voted between 1988–1993 are lagging due to the state’s inability to hire probation officers. Thus prison overcrowding combined with the increase in non-national prisoners not only threatens human rights within prisons, but challenges the normal functioning of the prison itself. This situation is becoming more pronounced year by year not only in Greece but in many European countries (Matthews, 1994; Prison Information Bulletin, 1992; Tomasevski, 1994).