Cells too packed
Overcrowding in police holding cells, particularly in Attica, appears to be a key reason for a recent spate of breakouts by detainees, police sources have told Kathimerini. Police in Attica have to deal with some 1,500 detainees daily, according to the same sources, who said that most of these people were being held at a handful of precincts in the city center, as they had to be close to the prosecutor’s office or, in the case of immigrants, close to the embassy of their country of origin. Between 200 and 300 people are arrested every day in the city center. The police precinct in central Omonia Square was accommodating 37 people instead of the maximum 25 it had been designed to hold when 13 illegal immigrants broke out of their cells there last Saturday.
