The Campania guarantor of prisoners: with the Caivano decree the number of minors in prison has doubled. “Aim for rehabilitation”

In October 2022, when the current Government took office, juvenile prisons housed 392 people, a number in line with the figure immediately before the pandemic. As of September 15, 2024, there were 569. In twenty-two months, the number of young prisoners increased by 48%. An unprecedented surge which has no basis in a parallel increase in juvenile crime, which has actually been decreasing for several years. These are some data released by Samuele Ciambriello, Campania Guarantor of people subjected to measures restrictive of personal freedom in the conference ‘Minors: Sea inside, evil outside’ in the Regional Council room.

“With the Caivano Decree, unaccompanied foreign minor prisoners and Italian prisoners have increased”, is Ciambriello’s comment. Which explains: “If in the eleven months from October 2022 to September 2023, when the Caivano Decree came into force, presences in juvenile penal institutions increased by 59 units, in the following eleven months, therefore since the Decree is in force, the increase was 129 presences, or more than double, resulting in overcrowding, a common phenomenon for adults but completely new for minors, 12 host more people than they should “.

“The needs of minors – added Ciambriello – are specific and different from those of adults; the use of measures of deprivation of liberty should only be permitted as an extrema ratio, i.e. when all alternative solutions are not viable or have proven to be unsuccessful. When prison is imposed as a last resort, the ultimate objective should be kept in mind: the reintegration of the minor into society and his rehabilitation”.