(2017) a Critical Exploration of the Causes and Challenges of the Rise in the Prison Population in the Prison Establishment in Cyprus - the Central Jail of Nicosia
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Citation: Spyrou, Katerina (2017) A critical exploration of the causes and challenges of the rise in the prison population in the prison establishment in Cyprus - the Central Jail of Nicosia. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University. This version was downloaded from Northumbria Research Link: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/36178/ Northumbria University has developed Northumbria Research Link (NRL) to enable users to access the University’s research output. Copyright © and moral rights for items on NRL are retained by the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. Single copies of full items can be reproduced, displayed or performed, and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given, as well as a hyperlink and/or URL to the original metadata page. The content must not be changed in any way. Full items must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holder. The full policy is available online: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/policies.html 1 ABSTRACT Over the last decade, the Central Jail of Nicosia (CJN) - the only correctional institution in the Republic of Cyprus – saw a significant rise in its prison population. Today, the CJN is facing a number of challenges to its legitimacy which are evident in recent episodes of prison unrest, and the rise in self-harm, suicides and rapes. This research aims to provide a critical exploration of the reasons behind the increase in the prison population, and the challenges this brings. The review of current evidence, while limited, suggests a number of possibilities which might account for the rise including political patronage, racism and corruption. In order to consider issues that concern the rise and challenges of the prison population, this study focuses on the connection between imprisonment and micro elements of the Cypriot society/culture such as crime rates and trends, levels of social expenditure, public opinion and punitiveness, and institutional trust and legitimacy. Exploration of the increase in the prison population was carried out within a critical realist framework. Data was collected using twenty seven semi-structured interviews with Criminal Justice System ‘elites’, (including politicians, judges, public prosecutors, prison staff, prison administrators, senior counsels of the Republic of Cyprus, officers from the Ombudsman Office, and the Ombudsman herself). Thematic analysis of this qualitative data aimed to uncover the deep and often unobservable structures and mechanisms that influence the prison population in Cyprus. The findings of this study suggest that the reasons behind the increase in the prison population and its challenges display significant correlation with political patronage, racism, and corruption, and explain the unprecedented levels of immigrants within the Central Jail of Nicosia. The study also revealed that foreign immigrants are at greater risk of rape and suicide, and the impacts of corruption by those in authority. Finally the study, suggests that the rise and the challenges of the rise in the prison population have significant social, economic and political axioms. 2 Contents Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................ 13 1.1 Prison population............................................................................................................ 15 1.2 Pains of imprisonment .................................................................................................... 18 1.3 Thesis Justification ......................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 2: Literature Review ................................................................................................... 23 2.1 Comparative criminal justice: between the Scylla of ethnocentricity and the Charybdis of relativism.................................................................................................................................. 23 2.2 The concept culture in cross cultural criminology ............................................................. 25 2.3 Punitive turn? From American dystopia to European utopia............................................. 25 2.4 Punitiveness and Political Economy .................................................................................. 27 2.5 Impediments in comparing prison rates ............................................................................. 28 2.5.1 The ‘cultural meaning’ of punitiveness and tolerance: ............................................... 29 2.5.2 Cultural peers and penal policies ................................................................................ 30 2.6 Punitiveness and Neo-Liberal States: ................................................................................ 32 2.6.1Explaining penalisation and neo- liberalization ........................................................... 33 2.7 Penal populism and politics ............................................................................................... 35 2.8 The significance of (Populist) punitiveness ....................................................................... 36 2.9 Political parties and ‘governing through crime’ ................................................................ 37 2.10 Penalisation and the new political culture ....................................................................... 39 2.10.1 From penal populism to penal nationalism ............................................................... 39 2.11 Migration and security in the European Union ................................................................ 41 2.12 Crimmigrant bodies ......................................................................................................... 43 3 2.12.1 European Union: A ‘land of immigration’ ................................................................ 44 2.12.2 Criminalisation processes of immigrants .................................................................. 45 2.13 The meaning and significance of ‘Bordered’ Society ...................................................... 46 2.14 The Northern penal state .................................................................................................. 48 2.14.1 From deviant states to deviant citizens: Exploring the hierarchies of Citizenship ... 49 2.15 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 51 Chapter 3: Cyprus setting and context ..................................................................................... 53 3.1 Cyprus - Crime, Punishment and Criminology: An introduction ...................................... 53 3.2 Current prison population .................................................................................................. 55 3.3 Cyprus: Background and Demographics ........................................................................... 58 3.4 History of nationalism in a divided state ........................................................................... 61 3.4.1 Cultural Considerations ............................................................................................... 63 3.4.2 Fragmentation and Bipolarization: the political culture of Cyprus ............................. 63 3.5 Features of the Cypriot Criminal Justice System ............................................................... 67 3.6 The prison in Cyprus: A historical development ............................................................... 68 3.7 The Cypriot prison department today: ............................................................................... 72 3.7.1 Structure of the Cyprus correctional system ............................................................... 73 3.7.2 Material conditions of detention ................................................................................. 73 3.7.3 Health services ............................................................................................................ 74 3.7.4 Transmittable diseases and mental disorder ................................................................ 75 3.7.5 Suicide, and Self-harm ................................................................................................ 75 3.7.6 Prison staff................................................................................................................... 76 4 3.8 The “January 2014 events”: ............................................................................................... 77 3.8.1 The Chronicle of the events ........................................................................................ 78 3.8.2 The events in a context ................................................................................................ 78 3.8.3 The political Response ................................................................................................ 79 3.9 Conclusion: ........................................................................................................................ 80 Chapter 4: Exploring crime and punishment in Cyprus: A Socio-Political Approach ............ 81 4.1 Economic downturn in Cyprus .........................................................................................