- 37 - B. Prisons 1. Preliminary remarks 73. In the course of the 2005 visit, the CPT’s delegation visited Korydallos Prison Complex19, as well as Chios and Komotini Judicial Prisons. At Korydallos the delegation focused its attention on Korydallos Women’s Closed Prison, Korydallos Prison Hospital and Korydallos Psychiatric Hospital, but also undertook a targeted follow-up visit to Korydallos Men’s Prison. In September 2005 these institutions, taken together, contained more than one third of the prisoner population in Greece. 74. At the time of the visit, the prison population stood at 9,465 whereas the official capacity of the prison estate was 5,584 prisoners. The Greek prison system was thus operating at 170% of its official capacity. The effects were evident in all the institutions visited by the CPT’s delegation and can best be visualised by the example of Korydallos Men’s Prison, where cells originally designed for single occupancy for the most part held three or four inmates; on 16 August 2005 the Men’s Prison held 2,102 persons for a capacity of 640. The situation in Korydallos Men’s Prison may be extreme but the deleterious effects of overcrowding were apparent in all the prisons visited. Further, from the information made available to the delegation and from the accounts of numerous prisoners, it is evident that many more of Greece’s prisons suffer from severe overcrowding. 75. The delegation was also deeply concerned by the inadequate provision of health care in all institutions visited, the very low staffing levels (and the concomitant effects this had upon professionalism and morale), and the lack of any appropriate regime. The overcrowding currently afflicting the prison system may be an impediment to the development of adequate measures to address these problems. However this phenomenon should not be allowed to generate an overall defeatist approach within the prison service. 19 Korydallos Prison Complex has been visited previously by the CPT in 1993, 1997, 1999 and 2001.