When the Ad Hoc Committee tasked to resolve the problem of overcrowding in the Central Prison in Nicosia was set up in May 2020, many hoped that it would help eliminate a growing issue that violated the human rights of prisoners.
Due to a lack of space, people were forced to sleep on the floor, recreation and sanitation rooms were transformed into cells, and people of different 62 nationalities were stacked in one building amid a pandemic.
Two and a half years after, the problem has only gotten worse. The number of convicts has risen to 956, while the prison can barely accommodate about half of the number. On top of this, since last July the government’s policy on immigration changed. Now persons deemed illegal migrants are imprisoned instead of deported. Dozens of people found at airports attempting to leave Cyprus with forged or stolen documents are imprisoned for 10 months.
Phileleftheros spoke with Central Prison Director, Anna Aristotelous, who says that the number of prisoners today is two and a half times more than what can be accommodated in the Prison. There is an immediate need, she says, for the number of detainees to be reduced to at least 600. She says that in some cases four people sleep in a cell made to fit one or two people. There are also cases when inmates take turns sleeping because of the lack of space.
Furthermore, she added, new detainees, arrive en masse, ten to 20 daily. The result of this situation is that there is no room for them to sleep even on the floor, and detainees are forced to live with convicts, which is a violation of the European Prison Rules of the Council of Europe, and the United Nations Mandela Rules.
Driving the large increase in the prison population is the state’s policy on illegal migration Aristotelous said and added that there is an urgent need to create legislation to reduce the burden on prisons. “Unfortunately in our country, there are no alternative measures other than detention and prison sentences for these cases.”
She adds that migration-related offences could also be resolved with administrative measures. “This means abandoning the strict policy of imposing prison sentences, at least for the offences of illegal entry or illegal stay in the Republic, as is the case in other developed countries,” Aristotelous said.
As the Director observed, implementing administrative measures for migration offences will not overburden the justice system. Often, she continued, people serve ten months in prison for offences related to migration and then they walk out and continue their lives. This means that the prison system is burdened for no reason. The taxpayers also pay a price since an inmate costs more than 100 euros per day to the prison.
The recommendations of the Ad Hoc Committee
The Ad Hoc Committee delivered an interim verdict in November 2021, with three suggestions for mitigating the issue of overcrowding in the Central Prison:
- Implementing alternative punishment methods for violations of the law on immigration, so that individuals are not sent to prison.
- Extending the use of electronic monitoring (bracelet) for defendants so that they do not have to spend time in prison while awaiting sentencing.
- Treating drug users as patients, not criminals.
The numbers reveal the extent of the problem:
- In previous years, admissions of persons convicted for offences related to illegal migration never exceeded 21% of the total number of convicts.
- This year, the number of persons convicted for offences related to illegal migration has already exceeded 31% of the total prison population.
