86 European Journal of Criminology 18(1) 8 250 6 200 4 2 150 0 -2 100 -4 -6 50 -8 -10 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 0 Debt-to-GDP ratio Imprisonment rate (one-day snapshots, per 100,000 population) GDP growth Figure 2. GDP growth, debt-to-GDP ratio and the rate of imprisonment in Greece, 2000-2019. Sources of data: World Bank (GDP growth); OECD (debt-to-GDP ratio); Greek Ministry of Justice (one-day snapshots of the prisoner population). Notes: For presentational purposes, the GDP growth series has been plotted on a secondary axis. Rates of imprisonment per 100,000 population were calculated by the authors. period since the fall of the junta in 1974. Between 2014 and 2015, there was also a 6.9 percent drop in the volume of admissions to prison under conviction, from 6481 to 6036, which accounts for the decline this period saw both in the total of prison admissions (by 3.7 percent) and, to a significant degree, in the total caseload of prisoners (by 6.1 percent). At the time of writing, caseload data were available only up to 2015. One-day snapshot measurements nevertheless allow for a fuller appreciation – and, in fact, paint a more complicated picture – of the impact that the prison reform bill had on the use of imprisonment in the country. On the one hand, these data indicate that Greece’s total prisoner population underwent an extraordinary 15.6 percent reduction within a mere three months immediately after the bill was passed (from 11,447 on 1 May 2015 to 9660 on 1 August 2015), with the most notable drops recorded amongst male and foreign prisoners. The reduction achieved within those months largely accounts for the 18.5 percent drop in the prisoner population for the year 2015 as a whole, itself the largest annual contraction in the country’s prisoner population to have been recorded (with reference to one-day snapshots) since the restoration of democracy in 1974. Not only was this development in line with the pledges Syriza had repeatedly made on the campaign trail with regard to penal policy; it also reflected the party’s desire to demonstrate in practice its broader commitment to forging a radical break with the politics and policies of past governments. This was especially so under conditions in which, as Figure 2 illustrates, the economic and fiscal crisis facing Greece was deepening, with