Carceral moderation and the Janus face of international pressure 45 deportation or pre-trial detainees, and the majority of violations have related to the length of proceedings, the right to a fair trial, and the provision of an effective remedy. Recent years have seen a wider thematic diffusion of violations, including those relating to the right to life, freedoms of expression, and the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. With regard to the latter, ECtHR decisions against Greece have typically concerned minimal healthcare provision and poor material conditions (e.g., insufficient floor space, lack of ventilation and hot water, unsuitable room temperature and poor hygiene) in conventional prisons, in detention spaces inside police stations, and increasingly over recent years, in sites of administrative detention of irregular migrants (see further [42–45]). Findings against Greece by the ECtHR – and also, in exceptional instances, by domestic courts – have involved the awarding of considerable monetary damages to victims (see further [43, 44]). According to ministerial sources, between 2011 and 2015 alone, the 16 convictions Greece received by the ECtHR involved fines totaling €1,646,000 [46]. Yet Greece has one of the poorest records of ECHR signatory states in implementing the judgments of the Court [10]. Indeed, the ECtHR ruled in 2011 that detention practices in Greece violated Article 3 of the ECHR and therefore that other EU member-states should cease transferring migrants to the country under the Dublin-II agreement [43]. Greece’s persistent failure to improve conditions of imprisonment and immigration detention has also been subject to a long series of damning reports by the CPT, culminating in an ‘exceptional public statement’ in March 2011. This was only the sixth public statement to have been issued by the Committee throughout its entire 22-year existence at that juncture. Such statements are the sole form of sanction the CPT may apply when national authorities consistently fail to make the changes requested [44], although CPT reports have also themselves become an increasingly important source of evidence for ECtHR judgments [27]. Since then, two further CPT reports have been published on Greece, which have also been highly critical of persisting and worsening problems bedevilling conditions of imprisonment and detention in the country (in 2014 and 2016), alongside a host of damning reports by national and international NGOs and media organisations. Greek governments have long responded to critical CPT reports with a combination of denial and defiance. Forms of denial in official responses to CPT reports have ranged from simply ‘ignoring findings of risks of ill-treatment’ ([35]: 207) to dismissing criticisms as ‘unfounded and offending [sic]’ ([47]: 63) – both in terms of fact (that ill-treatment occurred at all) and degree (that such cases were anything more than ‘isolated incidents’). Greek officials have even challenged the validity of CPT criticisms by claiming that prison conditions and the treatment of prisoners are more favourable in Greece than in most of its European counterparts (see further [44]). To the extent that criticisms have been accepted, responses to the CPT have commonly drawn attention to capacity limitations (from financial restrictions to staffing shortages) facing the Greek state in ameliorating conditions within prisons and immigration detention centres, whilst insisting that the country is working towards solutions to the problems at issue, whether through ongoing investigations (e.g., into allegations of abuse by staff) or planned legislative and practical interventions. Yet blame has often been deflected onto prisoners and detainees themselves and, with regard to the treatment of irregular migrants and conditions within administrative detention centres