House arrest for petty criminals?

THE JUSTICE Minister yesterday announced he was promoting a regulation that would allow petty criminals to serve their sentence under house arrest.
Speaking during the House Finance Committee’ discussion on his ministry’s 2008 budget, Sophoclis Sophocleous said the measure would ease the overpopulation problem faced by prisons and help convicts reintegrate into society.
The ministry’s budget provides £176.64 million in expenditure – an £11.1 million increase from the year before – of which £127 million are earmarked for staff wages and £21,287,000 for development projects.

Among the ministry’s development plans is a two-year programme for the construction of modern holding cells for 40 persons in Nicosia, Paphos, Limassol and Larnaca, and the creation of holding area in Menoyia for 200 illegal immigrants.
The budget also includes the purchase of 30 mobile traffic cameras and two rescue helicopters.

Sophocleous said he was also promoting the creation of medical centres within prisons and the upgrade of blocks to meet European standards.
According to the minister, the police are currently facing a serious problem with the trafficking of women. There are currently 120 cabarets operating in Cyprus employing 1,200 women, behind which Sophocleous said godfathers were operating.
He also referred to the opening of the checkpoints as “an open wound”, pointing out that it was difficult to control crimes such as drug trafficking.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.