AGAIN, yet again, the issue of prison overcrowding has come to the fore. The figures speak for themselves: Nicosia prison has a capacity of 274, and currently houses 430. It is bursting at the seams. Worse still, it is quite apparent that crime is on the rise. One only has to flick on the evening television to hear daily tales of armed robberies, break-ins, muggings.
All those criminals will end up in jail at one point or another. The question is under what conditions? Will the drug users be sharing a corridor with the drug pushers? (Yes, according to what the House Human Rights Committee heard yesterday.) Will the first-time shoplifter be on the same landing as the repeat offending armed robber? Or the debtor with the murderer, the 16-year-old illegal immigrant with the rapist?
If the answer to all these questions is ‘yes’, then we are storing up serious problems for the future, brutalising minor offenders, whose prison experience may turn them into hardened criminals on their release.
The problems and the risks are crystal clear. What is most depressing, however, is that it needn’t be this way. Cyprus has come under repeated criticism from the European Union and Council of Europe – let alone human rights activists – for its practice of jailing illegal immigrants. A total 197 of the prison population is currently made up of foreigners – almost half of whom (89) are serving sentences for illegal entry, residence or work, and should have been deported, not jailed. The maths is simple: 430-89=341 – still above the capacity of 274, but already getting better. Then subtract the nine debtors (European legal practice says debtors should not go to jail), and the 22 who should be receiving psychiatric treatment rather than languishing in jail, and you reach 310 – still above capacity but almost there.
To solve the problem entirely, bring on the community service programme. The Justice Ministry estimates about 100 offenders at any one time would be eligible for community service rather than jail, which would sort out the prison overcrowding problem overnight. Now, the government has thought about this, it’s even put together a pilot programme for Limassol, but the Supreme Court has vetoed it on the grounds the trial would have to be nationwide so as not to violate equality before the law – fair enough.
And what is needed to go national? Four social workers. Yes, four, that’s all. Pull out the calculator again: an inmate costs the taxpayer £36 a day: if 100 offenders do community service instead of doing time, the state will save over £100,000 a month – plenty enough to pay the wages of four social workers. So what are they waiting for?
Let’s hope the police have taken note
ALL credit to Education Minister Pefkios Georgiades for coming clean on his limo’s speeding offence. He did wrong, he was spotted by a Politis reporter, he apologised, pledging it would not happen again.
In his mea culpa to the paper, he admitted he had given a poor example to the public and underlined that no citizens – especially not state officials – were above the law.
We hope that police headquarters have taken note, and will from now on be enforcing the law against public officials with the same rigour as they employ in prosecuting private citizens.
