Italy’s prisons crisis | The Week

Italy recorded a grim new milestone this week as it was confirmed that a 21-year-old man has become the 85th inmate to take their own life this year, surpassing the previous record of 84 deaths by suicide in 2022.

The unidentified young man was also the fourth inmate this year to die by suicide at Marassi prison, near Genoa, according to Gennarino De Fazio, general secretary of the prison officers’ union. The previous death by suicide had happened less than a month before.

In a press statement, De Fazio said overcrowding and understaffing in Italian prisons had made life “almost impossible for both inmates and staff”. Seven prison officers have also taken their lives this year. “The overall situation in the prisons has been out of control for some time and, unfortunately, it’s getting worse every day,” he said.

Breaking point

According to the latest figures from the justice ministry, Italian prisons currently house 62,427 inmates, more than 10,000 over official maximum capacity. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni‘s “tough on crime” government has lengthened custodial sentences and introduced more than 20 new ones, but the problem is also exacerbated by Italy’s notoriously slow judicial system. Around 15% of those in detention have yet to go on trial, while another 10% are awaiting the outcome of an appeal.

Regina Coeli prison in Rome offers a “teeming microcosm” of the wider issues plaguing Italy’s carceral system, said Agence France-Presse (AFP). A former convent dating back to the 17th century, it is one of many historic prisons in desperate need of modernisation just to guarantee basic amenities like electricity and hot water. Speaking to a regional health board last month, Regina Coeli’s governor, Claudia Clementi, said overcrowding meant the dilapidated facility was operating on a knife-edge. “If 1,150 people take a shower instead of 700 to 800, the heating system may not work anymore,” she said. A guard employed at the facility told AFP conditions inside were “indescribable”.

Awash with violence

Crumbling prisons crammed with more inmates than they can handle have, unsurprisingly, boiled over into violence. In August, detainees at a young offenders’ institution in Turin trashed cells, set fires and assaulted guards in rioting motivated in part by overcrowding, Italian news site Il Post said. “The maximum capacity in the prison is 42 people,” read a caption on footage shared to TikTok by an inmate. “There are 60 of us.”

Prisoners are also all too frequently victims of violence. At a prison in Trapani, in Sicily, 11 officers have been arrested and another 14 suspended after video footage emerged of guards beating inmates in a solitary confinement unit. In Cuneo, in the north-west, 35 prison employees are under investigation for abuse of inmates. One prisoner was allegedly Tasered and beaten unconscious after asking to be moved to a single-man cell to observe Ramadan, state broadcaster Rai reported.

Tip of the iceberg

“For now, the prospects of a turnaround are weak,” said Euronews. A “prison decree” passed by the government in August contains some measures designed to alleviate the worst of the crisis, but detractors have said it does not go anywhere near far enough. For instance, the decree provides for the recruitment of 1,000 additional prison officers – well below the 7,000 needed. It also does not address the wider judicial or social reforms that campaigners say are needed to permanently reduce rates of incarceration.

Michele Miravalle of Antigone, an Italian NGO which monitors prison conditions, told Euronews that the government’s action so far had been “disappointing”. “It’s like trying to repair a house that has structural problems and is about to fall,” he said. “Instead of intervening on the foundations, you only fixed the windows.”