ROMA – “There are 4,000 extra prisoners in Italian cells, in simply 12 months, the extent of overcrowding reached in penal establishments is now at alarm ranges”. That is what was mentioned by Antigonean affiliation that has been coping with the Italian Penitentiary and Felony System since 1991 in a file offered this morning. The overcrowding price is 130.4% (internet of locations counted by the Ministry of Justice however not truly out there). In 56 penitentiary establishments, over 1 / 4 of these in Italy, the overcrowding price is larger than 150% with peaks of over 200% within the establishments of Milan San Vittore for males and Brescia “Canton Mombello”. Which means there are 200 folks detained the place there ought to be 100.
Overcrowding doesn’t even spare juvenile penal establishments. To know the gravity of the scenario, consider a college or a hospital the place there are double the variety of college students or sufferers that the services are in a position to look after. Overcrowding doesn’t even spare juvenile penal establishments (IPM), that are experiencing this downside for the primary time. “This example is now widespread – says Patrizio Gonnella, president of Antigone – it isn’t a negligible ingredient when speaking concerning the penitentiary system, the truth is a jail the place the variety of detainees is larger than the regulatory locations is a jail the place life is unhealthy, the place not solely the areas are assured but in addition the entry to actions, particularly work actions. An overcrowded jail is a spot the place even the operators have a more durable time working, the place the eye for the fragilities of many detainees can’t be intercepted or adopted as they deserve. The place there are conditions of great overcrowding, the detainee is more and more nameless, more and more a quantity slightly than an individual”.
58 suicides because the starting of the 12 months; 10 in July alone. Along with this overcrowding, 2024 can be being characterised because the 12 months of the suicide emergency. The individuals who have taken their very own lives inside a penitentiary establishment have been 58 to this point, of which 10 within the month of July alone and 12 within the month of June. At this price, the adverse document recorded in 2022 can be surpassed, when on the finish of the 12 months the individuals who dedicated suicide in jail had been 85.
Violations of elementary human rights. The appeals filed by inmates and accepted by the surveillance courts additionally certify a decline within the high quality of life and dignity of these in jail in conditions of great overcrowding. In 2023 alone, simply over 8,000 appeals filed for violation of Article 3 of the European Conference on Human Rights for humane and degrading remedy had been determined, of which 57.5% had been accepted by the surveillance courts. Typically, these appeals refer specifically to the dearth of the minimal dwelling area established in three sq. meters per particular person. An absence additionally detected by the Antigone observatory which within the 88 visits carried out within the final 12 months discovered that in 27.3% of prisons there have been cells that didn’t assure this minimal area.
The excessive recidivism charges. An overcrowded jail can be a jail that doesn’t contribute to constructing security for residents. It’s no coincidence that the recidivism price in Italy may be very excessive. A determine collected on December 31, 2021 confirmed that solely 38% of detainees had been at their first imprisonment, 62% as an alternative had already had no less than one different, with 18% of the folks current in jail having already had no less than 5 earlier imprisonments.
And it isn’t a pure phenomenon: it will depend on political selections. “Overcrowding – Patrizio Gonnella underlines – just isn’t attributable to pure causes however is the results of authorities insurance policies. These we’ve witnessed within the first two years of the Meloni authorities on this sense have performed a task within the development of jail populations with a substantial enhance within the variety of crimes and a harshening of penalties for a lot of kinds of crime. The penal system is used for the aim of acquiring consensus within the brief time period and the scenario may worsen if the safety invoice, presently below dialogue within the Chamber of Deputies, had been authorised, which incorporates quite a few penal provisions. All these measures have a standard thread: they have an effect on social marginalization and individuals who, attributable to their financial and social situation, are already extra prone to committing crimes. Individuals who ought to be supported by means of the welfare system and who enter jail typically with issues associated to their dependancy to substances or affected by psychiatric pathologies (in a number of instances even with a double prognosis) and who due to this fact would wish remedy paths and to not be imprisoned, with their administration offloaded onto the operators. Operators who, attributable to coaching or lack of employees, are discovering it more and more tough to take cost of the wants that emerge in prisons. The protests we’ve witnessed in current weeks – concludes the president of Antigone – are the reason for this profound discomfort that’s skilled in prisons and the impossibility of adequately addressing the pressing requests that emerge from the jail inhabitants”.
What ought to actually be completed. To deal with this case, he writes Antigone within the file, pressing measures are wanted that can considerably cut back overcrowding and enhance the standard of life in prisons. Measures that can not be the minimalist ones supplied for within the jail decree, lately authorised by the federal government and now below dialogue within the Senate for conversion into legislation, however which are marked by larger braveness: the rise in days of particular early launch; the decriminalization of some crimes (and the deletion of the safety invoice); the liberalization of phone calls; the hiring of each police and civilian personnel: educators, psychologists, psychiatrists, assistants, social employees, cultural mediators.
The modification to reopen felony asylums. Relating to the jail legislation, through the presentation of the file, it was recalled that an modification offered would result in a reopening of the Judicial Psychiatric Hospitals (OPG) in one other type, that’s to say that punitive shame that was eradicated within the 70s from the jail system after years of civil and political battles. In truth, it will set up some Rems (Residences for the Execution of Safety Measures)) first degree, for prisoners with extra critical psychiatric issues, which might make use of jail employees. This is able to the truth is be a return to the OPGs and a step backwards in comparison with the reform that abolished what was the final complete psychological establishment in Italy. Antigone’s enchantment is that this modification be withdrawn.
The “blah blah” about jail building linked to corruption. Among the many measures that can’t resolve the difficulty can be the jail building, which over time has led to waste of time and has left behind few buildings and plenty of judicial investigations for corruption.
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– 2024-07-23 23:32:46
