Archive note: This text comes from the old archive of Nomika Epilekta and is carefully preserved for historical and informational reading.

Statements appeared in the newspapers by a deputy prosecutor of the Court of Appeal, who criticizes (“castigates”) the legislative power because it allowed the conversion of prison sentences of up to five years, attributing this regulation, like others, largely “to university professors who practice law and thus act in favor of their clients”.

These prosecutorial statements, and the prosecutor himself, are praised excessively by certain prominent figures in articles published in daily Athenian newspapers (“To Vima”, “I Estia”, “Kathimerini”).

The question arises, however: Does the prosecutor who made these statements seriously maintain that all persons sentenced to imprisonment should be confined in prisons? If he supports imprisonment for all those sentenced to prison terms, he ignores that prisons do not fulfill their purpose, nor do they even approach the purpose for which they were founded and exist, because they are not correctional institutions but warehouses of pain and torment, of human humiliation, and universities of crime. Consequently, the legislative power was right to allow the conversion of prison sentences, so that those who, for some reason, broke the law or had the misfortune to become involved in a prosecution ending in their conviction should not be imprisoned, especially since such conviction is not always the product of a sound judicial judgment.

There should be dialogue on this issue and a presentation of opinions and judgments. University professors, or some of them, should be asked why, through their silence, they accept the prosecutorial position, which recognizes neither good intentions nor ideological and scientific motives in them, but accepts self-interest as their only motive. There should be an immediate and appropriate response to this particular prosecutor, even by reminding him that there are many university professors who do not practice law and have no reason not to serve science, humanity, reason and, above all, ethics.

Above all, there should once again be dialogue regarding the purpose of punishment, in which modern criminological research should also be taken into account, according to which the imposition of punishment does not curb criminality. The fact that prisons are, more or less, centers for postgraduate studies in criminality should also be taken seriously into account.