Fast pace in the succession of deaths in prison and the increase in the prison population mark the beginning of 2024. Four people committed suicide in the first nine days of the year, between 5 and 14 January: the first had entered prison in Ancona in September, due to the revocation of the house arrest under which he was serving his sentence, and was released in August this year. The penultimate one, detained in the Cuneo prison, had been in prison for 13 days: she entered on 28 December, she took her own life on January 10th. To these deaths must be added the 14 classified as 'deaths from natural causes'. These are the data released by the National Guarantor of the Rights of Persons Deprived of Personal Liberty.
“Eighteen deaths in the first 14 days of the year are the harbinger of a trend very similar to that of 2022, when 85 suicides were counted during the year: 8 in the month of January, exactly 5 in the first 14 days”, underlines the Guarantor explaining that the trend towards overcrowding without setbacks “has been an ongoing phenomenon for a year, with a worrying progression compared to previous years: if at the end of 2022 the prison population had increased by approximately 2000 units compared to December 2021 , the increase recorded as of 30 December 2023 is exactly double, with around 4000 more people detained. In the last three months (from 14 October to 14 January) the increase was 1196 presences, therefore, almost 400 per month” .
“The current index of crowding in Italian prisons, as of 14 January 2024, is 127.54%: 60,328 people detained, 13,000 more than the 47,300 places available, with peaks of overcrowding of 232.10% in the house prison of San Vittore in Milan, 204.95% in the prison of Canton Mombello in Brescia, 204.44% in that of Lodi, 195.36 in that of Foggia”, he continues.
“The criticality of the density of the detained population – continues the National Guarantor of the rights of persons deprived of personal liberty – is aggravated by the way in which the new discipline of medium security detention is implemented, for which if the persons are not engaged in activities remain locked in the overnight rooms: the lack of activity, which can be found widely in our penitentiary system, therefore determines their stay in closed cells, in spaces which in two institutions are also certified as smaller than the limit of 3 m2 per person for which the European Court of Human Rights has indicated the strong presumption of inhuman treatment, in violation of Article 3 of the Convention, an article which – we remember – does not allow exceptions, not even in exceptional situations”.
The board of the National Guarantor still “currently in office, while waiting for the completion of the procedures for establishing the board that will take over for the next five years, cannot fail in its task of preventing both violations of the rights of detained persons and the consequent sanctions burden of the State and of all citizens, assigned by law to the Guarantee Authority as an ordinary fulfillment”, he specifies. The National Guarantor reports, “therefore, to all the responsible authorities, that the state of overcrowding of Italian penitentiary institutions cannot wait for the time of building projects of different kinds and is not filled by the construction of the new 8 pavilions included by the previous government in the Pnrr , since they will be able to accommodate no more than 640 people: a drop compared to the current surplus of 13,000 prisoners compared to the places available”.
The National Guarantor therefore recommends that “urgent measures to deflate the prison population be taken such as those introduced with the legislative decree of 23 December 2013 no. 146, even if of a temporary duration, and that the regulatory provision be launched quickly to allow a different method of penal execution for people sentenced to short sentences, less than two years of imprisonment, which today number more than 4000 units; a method of strong territorial relationship, to be implemented also by recovering already existing state-owned structures. Such measures could bring the system back to respect the dignity of the lives of detained people and the re-socializing purpose of punishment, also with a view to preventing the discomfort that is very often behind acts of suicide in prison”.
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