Greece: Prisons Are Bad but Necessary (and Expanding), Policies Are Necessary but Bad (and Declining)

Abstract

Prison policy and legislation since 1830, when Greece became an independent state, is described as ‘whimsical’ (Dimopoulos 2003), because of the successive reforms and re-arrangements, the drifting from one correctional system to another, and from one penal philosophy to another. All relevant initiatives remained incomplete and decisions were overruled because of political instability, repeated emergencies and exceptional situations (occupations by foreign forces, dictatorships, wars, civil wars, economic crises).¹ The prison system throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was characterised by dismal conditions — with institutions described as ‘dirty drains’ (Maurer 1835 in Courakis 2009), ‘schools of crime for the young inmates and graves for the elderly’ (Appert 1856,), ‘earthly hells’ (Dedis 1872), ‘animals’ hideouts’ (Parliamentary Minutes 1885).