- 52 E. Prison establishments 1. Preliminary remarks 93. In the course of the 2013 visit, it became clear that the Greek prison system continued to be afflicted by the same fundamental deficiencies observed in the past, notably severe overcrowding and an acute shortage of staff. These two problems are, in many respects, the source of additional serious shortcomings in the prisons visited, including poor material conditions and lack of hygiene, inter-prisoner violence, insufficient medical care, and a lack of purposeful activities for prisoners. 94. According to the Greek Ministry of Justice, the overall capacity of the prison system stood at 10,286 places, while there were a total of 12,759 prisoners as of 28 February 2013. However, the distribution of prisoners across the prison estate is not even, which means that certain establishments, such as the open agricultural prisons, were operating far below their official capacity, while others, notably the Judicial Prisons, were operating up to 300% (sometimes even more) over their official capacity. The Ministry of Justice informed the CPT’s delegation that while some new prisons have been completed and opened since the last CPT visit in 2011, two of them, Chania and Nigrita Serres, were operating at less than 50% of their combined capacity due to lack of staff. The CPT has already stressed that the building of additional prisons might not alone be able to provide a sustainable solution to the problem of overcrowding.55 Experience from other European countries has shown that the promotion of policies to limit or modulate the number of persons being sent to prison, or the time they have to serve, has often been an important factor in containing or reversing the growth of the prison population. In this context, the CPT had also drawn the attention of the Greek authorities to Recommendation No. R (99) 22 of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers concerning prison overcrowding and prison population inflation.56 The Greek authorities have made efforts to introduce several measures in recent years to reduce the prison population, such as early release schemes.57 However, these measures have not had a lasting effect on the overall prison population. It should, in this context, also be noted that the various schemes have, to date, excluded foreign nationals who did not have a permanent residence in Greece. 55 56 57 See, for example, the report on the CPT’s 2005 visit: CPT/Inf (2006) 41, paragraph 77. See the report on the CPT’s 2001 visit: CPT/Inf (2002) 31, paragraph 57. See also the report on the CPT’s 2009 visit: CPT/Inf (2010) 33, paragraph 88; and the report on the CPT’s 2011 visit: CPT/Inf (2012) 1, paragraph 47.