ABSTRACT
Greece has faced a systemic problem of prison overcrowding for over two decades. Shortage of prison staff and poor health care services are also recurrent deficiencies that are now brought to the forefront due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, closed male prisons are exceeding their capacity in percentages that reach up to 253%. The spread of the pandemic in prisons is following the outbreak of infections in the community, with an upward trend after October 2020 and a high virus load in the north of the country. Although the situation is fragile, the government has refrained from implementing any measures that would relieve overcrowding and protect vulnerable groups. On the contrary, the prison population has risen from January 2020 to January 2021 by 5%, while legislation enacted in the middle of the crisis (mid-December 2020) reduced prisoners’ access to important rights, thus jeopardising their resettlement process. The punitive policy adopted by the new government marks a turn from reform attempts initiated by the previous administration. There is no space at the moment for developing consensual, more moderate, policies in line with the new Penal and Penal Procedure Codes and the recommendations of Council of Europe experts.
