The overcrowding of Italian prisons is a huge problem, but not new. Let’s try to see it like this: how many people can be comfortably in a five -seater machine? Five, of course. But if you ever happened to travel in six, you know how uncomfortable it can become. Now imagine that machine is one prison And that, instead of being one too much, be almost twice the expected ones. It is the situation that lives thousands of every day detained in Italywhere prisons are full at 120% On average, with tips that touch 190% in some provinces. In this article we show you which territories are more in difficulty, which institutes are collapsing and because it is not enough to “move the prisoners” to solve the problem. Spoiler: Serious, structural and courageous policies are needed. And maybe even a little more space.
To show you the magnitude of the problem we use i data which publishes the monthly Ministry of Justice on the number of prisoners present and the expected capacity of each prison institution in our country.
The overcrowding of prisons is a national problem and it is not easy to understand how serious it is
From the last available bulletin it appears that on average in Italy the prison I am full at 120%therefore, we go far beyond the number of prisoners envisaged by the space we have available. A fact that, read that way, may not surprise you, but try to rethink that time when you will certainly have to travel in six in a car from five Places: the elbow of your friend who pushes on the side, the legs that collide with those of the neighbor and the hands that do not know where to put them. Here, the relationship between capacity and effective filling of the car is exactly equal to that of Italian prisons on average.
And we underline “on average”, because they exist situations much more Criticism. This is the case, for example, of the Province of Como, in Lombardy, where the relationship between prisoners present and capacity touches the 190%. Which is as if going to the restaurant they made us eat at a table for six, but we are eleven (plus a child).
We call Crowding rate the relationship between the expected capacity And actual filling: if the rate is less than 1 (or 100, in percentage values), then it means that the prison is not saturated, and the prisoners have a space consoled with life in the institute. While, if the rate is greater than 1, we are talking about overcrowding and the state is guaranteeing prisoners a lower space compared to what he himself believes appropriate. Here you can see one Map of the crowding rate in each Italian province:
The provinces red are those where the prisoners are in excess Compared to the expected capacity, the green ones (very few) are those where the institutes have not yet been filled to the maximum (or beyond). The more dark colors and the more The situation is critical. If you are interested in some specific province you can explore an interactive version of the map here.
You will have noticed a brighter bright spot in the north, in particular in Lombardy, the most populous region in Italy, which has the institutes in which overcrowding is more serious. For example, the Canton Mombello prison (also known as the “Nerio Fischione” district house) in Brescia, where the prisoners are twice as much as those expected. On the contrary, Sardinia reports rather light colors, with the province of Cagliari alone in a condition of overcrowding.
But do not make the mistake of thinking that it would be enough to better redistribute the prisoners in the country to relieve the problem. Behind the numbers that we are presenting there are people and behind these people, an entire network of other people (partners, children, friends) who are fundamental that he does not lose contact with prisoners, who therefore cannot be sent too far from home.
Governments often try to intervene, but rarely (or never) find a solution
In any case move the prisoners in other regions it would not solve the problem Of the spaces, because, as we said at the beginning of the article, in the complex of the country there are more detainees than available places. So what are the initiatives that politics can undertake to face the problem?
It is certainly not a recent problem that we are talking about and at several moments the governments have tried to reduce the overcrowding rate of Italian prisons. Just think that in 2010, the crowding rate exceeded 150%that is, in the car with five places where in the example of before we were in six, fifteen years ago we would have been eight.
For reduce overcrowding of prisons, levers generally operated by governments are 3:
- Reduce the prison population With indults and amnesties, such as those of 2006 with which the Prodi II government reduced the prisoners by 26 thousand units. However, these actions have a limited effectiveness in the long run
- increase the number and capacity of prison institutions. Bureaucracy and lack of funds, however, often brake these maneuvers
- limit the use of pre -trial detention in prisonencouraging the use of less restrictive precautionary measures for the so -called, minor crimes. For example, the 2013 EmptyCarceri decree of 2013 implemented by the Letta government.
In the graph you can observe the trend of the Prisonal crowding rate In the last 15 years in the five macro-ares of our country:
As mentioned, all the initiatives undertaken so far to contain the problem have produced limited and temporary results. It has never been possible to go under the 100% threshold of prison crowding, and the trends, in all areas of the country with the exception of the South, are constantly increasing.
