Department of the Juvenile Probation Service and Probation Service for Adults of Karditsa

The Department of the Juvenile Probation Service and Probation Service for Adults of Karditsa is based at the Court of First Instance of Karditsa and is housed on the ground floor of the Karditsa Judicial Court Building.

The Karditsa Judicial Court Building was founded in 1934 by Spyros Taliadouros, a Karditsa-born Minister of Justice, on the site of a plot belonging to the public library “I Athina”.

The building is a two-storey, wide-fronted structure in the shape of the Greek letter Π (pi), with a square, windowless, three-storey prison building located in its interior (the prison structure has since been demolished). The simple façade is symmetrically arranged, featuring a raised central entrance section and an imposing portico. Decorative architectural elements inspired by Neoclassicism are limited to the roof finials above the doorways and the plasterwork imitating ashlar masonry.

The project was funded before the Second World War through the special taxation system known as the “megarosimo” (court building stamp duty), from the Special Fund for the Construction of Judicial Buildings and Prisons, as was the case in several other Greek cities. Due to the circumstances of the war, the building was completed in 1954, after the prison facilities had already begun operating in 1948.

The Department of the Juvenile Probation Service and Probation Service for Adults of Karditsa, based at the Court of First Instance of Karditsa, falls under the 2nd Directorate of Juvenile Probation and Social Assistance Services of Thessaloniki of the Ministry of Justice.

Within the scope of its territorial jurisdiction, its operational objective is the provision of non-custodial measures for minors who have committed an offence or are at risk of becoming offenders or victims of criminal acts. The Service supports the juvenile criminal justice system both in the field of preventing juvenile delinquency and victimisation, as well as in the treatment and management of juvenile offenders.

The Service is responsible for providing assistance and supervision to persons who have been sentenced to imprisonment with suspension of the execution of their sentence under supervision, to persons whose sentence has been converted into an obligation to perform community service, and to persons who have been conditionally released.

It is also responsible for conducting social inquiries concerning persons held in temporary detention or persons subject to restrictive conditions, as well as for supervising individuals who have been conditionally released, those sentenced to imprisonment with suspension of execution under supervision, and those whose sentence has been converted into an obligation to perform community service.