Overcrowding and suicides in Italian prisons.Antigone's new relationship

The situation in Italian prisons is dramatic.But the government continues to introduce new crimes and toughen sentences.

• Today there are 61,480 people in Italian prisons compared to approximately 47 thousand effective places available.
• In 2024 there have already been 58 suicides and in prospect there is a risk of setting a new, dramatic record.
• For the Antigone association, the prison emergency in Italy is the result of deliberate government policies.

There is a double emergency in the Italian prisons, that of overcrowding and that of suicides.This is what the association's new report reports Antigone, titled The prison explodes.

Today there are some in Italian prisons 61,480 prisoners compared to approximately 47 thousand actual available places.A national overcrowding rate of over 130 percent, which in some institutions even exceeds 190 percent.Increasing numbers, which show how the Italian penitentiary system, repeatedly condemned by the international justice, is taking steps backwards rather than forwards.And this can also be seen in the number of suicides.So far in 2024 they have taken their own lives 58 prisoners, a record figure compared to previous years.And the Meloni government does not seem willing to change course.

Prisons increasingly overcrowded

The Antigone association presented its relationship mid-year report on the Italian penitentiary system, entitled The prison explodes.The report highlights that they are present in Italian cells 61,480 prisoners in 51,234 regulatory detention places, from which over 4 thousand must be subtracted due to unusability and work in progress.The real crowding rate is therefore above 130 percent.

I am 56 the institutions in which the crowding rate is higher than 150 percent while in eight, including the Milanese prison of Saint Victor, the data exceeds 190 percent.Problematic numbers, which are also constantly worsening.As Antigone points out, in the last 12 months attendance has grown by 3,955 units, that is, of 6.9 percent.The increase affected everyone without distinction:The institutions for men, women and juveniles.Here the young people detained were 406 a year ago, today the number has risen to 555 for 514 official posts.

Record number of suicides

As Antigone underlines, in 27.3 percent of the institutes visited there were cells in which three square meters of walkable space per person were not guaranteed, as required by Italian law.In several institutions, basic services such asrunning water, there are infestations like those of bedbugs and the heat is unbearable during the summer, without any remedies being provided.

The overcrowding and degradation of the Italian penitentiary system, accompanied by the limited activities provided for prisoners due to the absence of staff, worsen an already very fragile environment.THE'8.4 percent of prisoners have serious psychiatric diagnoses, while 17.7 percent regularly take mood stabilizers, antipsychotics or antidepressants.The 39.2 percent takes sedatives or hypnotics.This health emergency translates into the fact that for every hundred prisoners, 17.4 commit crimes acts of self-harm.And the number of suicides is at record levels.

They are already in 2024 58 prisoners who took their own lives.This means that the projection will be 2024 the worst year in decades, with over one hundred deaths.The previous record was in 2022, with 85.And the malaise is growing, as is also demonstrated by the protests and riots which are increasingly agitating institutions, such as that of Trieste, Where death of the prisoner Zdenko Ferjancic for probable methadone overdose he reported to mind the March 2020 massacre in the prisons of Modena, Bologna and Rieti.

The immobility of the government

“Overcrowding is not due to natural causes but is the result of government policies,” he underlined Patrizio Gonnella, president of Antigone.

From the "rave decree" to the "Cutro decree", moving on to the "Caivano decree" and the new security package under discussion, the Meloni government it introduced new types of crime which contributed to filling prisons instead of emptying them.The only response to overcrowding was the promise of build new prisons, long-term projects that do not serve to resolve the current emergency and which clash with the recidivism rate of 68.7 percent, a sign that the Italian prison system does not work and must be changed rather than strengthened.While the Giachetti bill proposal, time to raise the sentence discount from 45 to 60 days for each semester for the purposes of the early release of prisoners is causing one clash in government between Forza Italia, in favor, and the League and Brothers of Italy, against.