A four-day, unannounced visit carried out from 1 to 4 April 2025 by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) to the Central Prisons, police detention centres, and the holding area at Larnaca Airport resulted, eight months later, in a 44-page report that exposes the Cypriot detention system.

The report, published today together with the response of the Republic of Cyprus, focuses on the Central Prisons in Nicosia and records “serious concerns” about safety, detention conditions, and the protection of vulnerable groups. Despite some improvements compared to previous visits in 2017 and 2023, the overall picture, according to the Committee, is that little has improved—while much has worsened.

Powerful groups of inmates running the Prison

The CPT finds that the physical safety of prisoners remains a serious problem, while violence among inmates in certain wings has increased. Due to chronic shortages of frontline staff, “powerful groups of inmates” appear to control wings, impose informal punishments, and operate as centres of power inside the prison.

The Committee links this situation to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, reminding that the state has a legal obligation to protect those deprived of liberty. When daily control shifts to groups of inmates because the state fails to ensure adequate and trained staff, the issue is not only managerial but institutional.

In this environment, the chronic rotation of police officers into the role of deputy prison director, without stable administrative structure, functions more as image-management than a solution. And when part of the real administration informally shifts to “powerful” inmates with privileges, the question of how drugs and mobile phones enter the prison becomes even more pressing.

5.5 m² cells, bottles and bags instead of toilets

The picture of living conditions is suffocating. In some wings, the Committee found up to four prisoners in cells measuring 5.5 square meters—a space that should not house more than one person.

More than half of the cells lack toilets. At night, when the minimal staff cannot escort prisoners to shared toilets, many are forced to urinate in bottles and defecate in bags inside their cells. The CPT describes this practice as degrading in itself.

The Committee notes positively that inmates spend much of the day outside their cells. However, for many, there are no meaningful activities—no education, no work, no organised sports. The result is a prison full of people but almost empty in terms of real reintegration programming.

Minors in mouldy cells

The criticism regarding the detention of minors is particularly harsh. The CPT finds that children are still being held in the Central Prisons, in poor and unsuitable conditions. Due to overcrowding, some minors sleep on mattresses on the floor, in mouldy and graffitied cells, alongside young adults.

There is no meaningful child-focused activity or vocational programme. Many children report feeling cold, hungry, and spending their days without any creative engagement. The Committee is unequivocal: the Central Prisons are “not an appropriate place for the detention of children,” and it calls for their immediate transfer to a dedicated juvenile facility.

Cyprus has for years announced reforms in juvenile justice and the creation of specialised structures. The CPT’s report is a reminder that as long as announcements do not become reality, the country is internationally exposed.

Health, suicides, and mini-prisons inside police stations

In the area of health, the only substantial progress recorded since 2023 is the hiring of a psychiatrist. Medical confidentiality continues to be violated, as guards—not medical staff—distribute medication. Injury recording is inadequate. There is no comprehensive suicide-prevention or self-harm strategy, nor a serious plan for dealing with drug use inside prisons.

The Committee also strongly criticises the enforcement of disciplinary sanctions. No substantial changes have been made to temporary disciplinary isolation, and procedural safeguards for sanctioned inmates remain lacking. The complaints mechanism is described as ineffective, lacking real confidentiality and meaningful oversight.

The report does not stop at the Prisons. In police detention centres, the CPT repeats a long-standing recommendation: these facilities should not be used for long-term detention. Nevertheless, during the visit it found individuals held for months in areas designed for a few days. Most detainees described the police treatment as “acceptable,” but there were also allegations of physical and verbal ill-treatment.

The fact that CPT President Alan Mitchell returned to Cyprus in June 2025 for direct talks with the Minister of Justice Marios Hartsiotis (reshuffled yesterday), the Deputy Chief of Police, and the Prison Director shows that the problem has been known at the highest levels for years.

Government justifications

In its response, the Cypriot government de facto acknowledges overcrowding and staff shortages and presents a package of measures. Among them: increased use of electronic monitoring (ankle bracelets) instead of pre-trial detention, referring prisoners with substance-use problems to treatment programmes instead of prison, and committing that cells under 6 m² will only house one prisoner.

These announcements add to earlier promises made after the CPT’s 2023 visit and the meetings of summer 2025. Whether they remain “measures under consideration” or reach the prison wings and detention centres will be judged in practice.

From “hotel” to hellhole

Until 2023, Cyprus’ Prisons were considered a model, and practices used there had been adopted by other European countries. They were even featured as among the most humane prisons in the world in a special Netflix programme. The human-centred policy chosen at the time had triggered opposition from police officers who favoured a harsher approach and called the prisons a “hotel.”

Everything changed when the director and deputy director reported a senior police officer for collaborating with a high-risk inmate, who had been asked to find videos of the two women’s private moments to “destroy” them. After the complaint, instead of being punished, the police officer was promoted to Assistant Chief of Police—even though an independent criminal investigator had recommended his prosecution. The recommendation was dismissed by the Attorney-General, citing “public interest” without explanation.

Instead, the director and deputy director were forced out of the Prisons and have since faced successive criminal and disciplinary investigations and prosecutions—apparently retaliatory due to their complaint against the officer. After their removal, police officers have repeatedly been appointed as acting directors, despite the Council of Europe’s clear position that the police should not be involved in the prison system.

Conditions in Cyprus’ Prisons have continuously deteriorated, culminating in the current CPT report.