Teacher calls for more measures to protect juvenile prisoners from Covid-19

The director of the school in the Avlonas Prison for Young Offenders, in northern Attica, appealed to Sotiris Tsiodras, head of the Health Ministry’s task force fighting the new coronavirus, to take additional measures to protect the health of inmates.

In his open letter to Tsiodras posted on his Facebook page on April 16, Petros Damianos said that Avlonas’ prison director and staff have made “a great effort” to implement the protective measures issued by the ministry, but they are not enough.

“In Avlonas, all measures are cancelled out due to overcrowding,” he said, noting that the prison hosts 277 inmates though its current capacity is for 110, due to maintenance work underway.

“My students sleep on the floor or two in one bed,” he added and urged for “significant” decongestion, if no other measures are available.