18-07-16 Children visit parents at prison, second chance schools planned

The children’s visiting hours for children of prisoners at the Patras prison was inaugurated on July 18 by Alternate Education, Research, and Religious Affairs Minister Sia Anagnostopoulou and the General Secretary on anti-crime policy at the Ministry of Justice, Transparency and Human Rights, Eftyhis Fytrakis.

The visits to parents take place in a space that has been turned into a sort of child’s playroom, where prisoners can spend time with their children. The room was set up with the cooperation of the prison’s technical staff with prisoners, who fashioned the space with their own labour. The furnishing and toys were paid for with private donations.

Patras prison is the second prison with children’s visiting hours in Greece, and it constitutes part of the justice ministry’s policy of creating prisons with a humane character. By maintaining contact between prisoners who are parents and their children in “children’s rooms”, there is improvement in the psychosocial development markers of the children, family ties are strengthened, and the inevitable negative repercussions of incarceration are reduced.  The aim is to achieve a smoother social and family integration for prisoners, reducing the chances of recidivism.  Hence, this is part of a truly practical anti-crime policy.

The inaugural ceremony of the programme was addressed by the head of the Patras incarceration centre Antonis Zikos, His Eminence Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Patras, Western Greece Prefect Apostolos Katsifaras, Achaia MP Andreas Rizoulis, Patras Apellate Court Prosecutor Evripidis Nikolaou, and Western Achaia Mayor Christos Nikolaou.

After the ceremony, the alternate minister and general secretary visited the autonomous educational facility of the Second Chance School that will operate in the prison as of the next academic year. The new school will be autonomous and will be housed in new, larger quarters. In the next school year, four more Second Chance Schools will operate in as many prisons (Domokos, Nigrita, Malandrino, and Chania, Crete). This implements the commitment of the Ministries of Justice and Education to provide educational structures in all prisons and to every prisoner that requests it.