It is lunchtime at Prague's Pankrác Prison. While some inmates sit and eat in their musty cells, others mill around the corridor, bowls of soup in hand, chatting to staff. The time is 11 a.m., and these men have already been up for more than six hours. Dressed in gray slacks, they will spend most of their day staring at the prison's peeling white walls. Some are young, some are old, but they all share cells designed to hold far fewer people than their current occupancy levels. And these prisoners are among the luckier ones. Pankrác is overcapacity, but not by much.
If you cast the net nationwide, the picture looks bleaker: Czech jails are at their fullest since records began, with the number of prisoners rising yearly. Human rights campaigners blame judges for imposing harsh custodial sentences and ignoring alternative forms of punishment. Meanwhile, there are growing fears staff safety could be jeopardized. On average, the country's 36 prisons house 12 percent more inmates than they are designed to, according to official data from July 20. Put in real terms, they have space to hold up to 20,855 inmates when there are currently 23,369. The worst offender is Heřmanice Prison in Ostrava, whose capacity is teetering on the brink at 137 percent.
As jails are filled to bursting point, Prisons Service spokesman Robert Káčer says the cramped conditions have already led to violence and tension between inmates and staff.
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