and sexual exploitation of women by state officials (Baldwin-Edwards and Fakiolas, 1998, p. 197-8). Immigration policy in a hasty and abusive environment is no exception to this. Indeed, research shows that the temporary staff employed by the government to deal with immigrants ‘were not only untrained, but themselves started to develop informal networks of personalised contacts and financial corruption, alongside the neo-liberal values of efficiency and competitiveness’ (Baldwin-Edwards, 2004, p. 56). For example, drawing on the responses of the authorities to allegation of ill-treatment, they ‘appear to be considered either as isolated cases or as fabricated stories, rather than as indicators of a serious problem’ (CPT, 2010, p. 10). As one detention officer at Petrou Ralli detention centre simply put it ‘We get racists who don’t behave’ (Human Rights Watch, 2008, p. 81). Therefore, the lack of any kind of system which would guarantee that allegations are investigated properly and perpetrators are punished is not unsurprising in this context. The proclaimed independent authority, which would deal with such complaints, only became operational in 2017. Even if allegations of ill-treatment could be regarded as isolated incidents, the regularity of the complaints over the years, the crossreference and relevance of witnesses’ reports of ill-treatment incidents, as well as the failure of the state to combat xenophobia and racial profiling in the practices of its representatives and to exert the political will to treat foreign nationals on its soil with respect and humanity, document a consistent pattern of human rights violations in detention centres in Greece with the assent of all the involved authorities. In other words, they all knew and did nothing about it. 92