“The heat blurs the overcrowding in the cells, but politics sleeps with air conditioning”. To write it, in a letter, is the former mayor of Rome Gianni Alemanno, detained in the Rebibbia prison, and his accusation was pronounced on Wednesday by the Senator of the Democratic Party Michele Fina. In the room of Palazzo Madama Fina it read a passage of the “cell diary” of Alemanno, the one that tells the 180th day of detention. The dem said he wanted to read “the words of a political opponent from whom I feel far away” on the prison condition as he “felt convened by the words of President Sergio Mattarella”, Which a few days ago asked the political forces to deal with the conditions of the prisoners.
During the pronouncement of that speech, in the G8 department of Rebibbia a woman attempted suicide, and fortunately she was saved. Alemanno still revealed it, in another letter sent on Wednesday.
«Politics sleeps (with air conditioning), waiting for the commissioner in charge to magically build the new prisons cHe should host the 14,000 people who are detained more than those that by regulation our penitentiary institutes could hostAnd », continues Alemanno, who attacks:« The last news is that they will be purchased with 32 million euros of the prefabricated structures which, once installed, They should accommodate 384 more inmates, for a cost of 83,000 euros for each prisoner! Considering the months necessary for the installation, these prefabricated ones will not even be able to host the new people who in the meantime will have been brought to prison ».
The reference is to the government provision that had announced short times to build new structures to host prisoners in underwolland prisons with the hot record of these days which makes the conditions of prisoners even more dramatic.
The situation reported by the former mayor of Rome is reflected in the numbers lined up by the Association Antigone on the conditions of detention in Italy in the XXI report presented a month ago in Rome and entitled Breathless.
The total prisoners are 62,445, against an overall capacity of the Italian prisons of 51,280 seats. The crowding rate developed by the Association is 121.8%, slightly lower than that indicated by the Ministry of Justice which is 134.19% (but is updated on 1 July).
Of the 189 Italian prisons those not overcrowded are now only 36, It reads in the report, while those with a crowding rate equal to or greater than 150 percent are now 58, when at the end of March 2023 there were 39.
To date, the most crowded institutes are Milan San Vittore (220%), Foggia (212), Lucca (205), Brescia Canton Monbello (201), Varese (196), Potenza (193), Lodi (191), Taranto (190), Milan San Vittore Female (189), Como (188), Busto Arsizio (187), Rome Regina Coeli (187), Treviso (187).
The overcrowding does not affect only adult prisons. For the first time in history it also affects the criminal institutes for minors where 611 are held (including 27 girls). “A historical record that has worrying characters if you think of the fact that at the end of 2022 there were 381 people in the IPMs”, highlights Antigone’s report, entrusting the increase of these numbers to the “Caivano decree” which made the numbers grow enormously, especially of the boys in precautionary custody (65% of minors are in fact imprisoned without a definitive sentence).
Tackling the problem of overcrowding by building new prisons or by expanding existing ones is not, according to Antigone, the right path: “In Italy”, he denounces the relationship, “the problem of prison overcrowding has long been addressed starting from a simplistic assumption: considering it, that is, as an exclusively infrastructure phenomenon, attributable to the mere insufficiency of beds. This vision, however, risks concealing the structural problem represented by the insufficiency of staff. The Italian penitentiary system, in fact, has suffered for years of a chronic lack of prison police officers, educators, psychologists, cultural mediators and healthcare personnel. This lack seriously compromises the ordinary management of institutes, making it impossible to guarantee decent standards of internal life and treatment. Open new sections or new institutes, without in parallel to invest in the recruitment and training of qualified personnel, inevitably ends up further aggravating the problem ».
The report then dedicates ample space to the statistics of the crimes, all slightly decreasing over time. In the period from 2008 to 2013 “there is a general decrease in the crimes committed and reported”. Despite this, the number of inputs still grew: “In 2024 43,417 people entered prison, about 3,000 more than the entrances of the previous year”.
As for the age of the detained population, this “Continue to increase, but it does it irregularly.” The ultra forty -five, which in 2010 were only 26.1 percent of those present at the end of 2024 were 42.2 percent. Young people around twenty -five years of age in 2010 were 10.4 percent, 5.8 percent in 2022, While at the end of 2024 they represented 6.4 percent of the presences, and 10.4 percent of the detained foreigners.
Foreign people held on April 30, 2025 are 19,740, equal to 31.6 percent of the prison population. In recent years, the presence of foreign prisoners has remained constant although taking a decreasing trend. Most of them are detained in the prisons of northern Italy and Lazio.
In 2024 91 prisoners committed suicide
A part of Antigone’s report is dedicated to suicides. In 2024 there are 91 prisoners who have committed suicide. This is the year with more dead in the cell ever. As for this year, between January and May 2025 there are 33 people who commit suicide. The association explains that it has used the numbers of the dossier as a source Die of prison of restricted horizons also because there are no official data from the institutions. DThe these 124 suicides, four eraNo women. The youngest are four boys who were 20 years old, the oldest an 82 -year -old man. 45.2 percent are foreign people. While 40 percent were waiting for the first judgment.
According to the elaborations, the rate of suicides in prison, in 2024, is equal to 14.8 cases every 10,000 people held. You can also process a suicide rate with respect to free society. The report reads: «According to the Higher Institute of Healthin 2021 the suicide rate in Italy was equal to 0.59 cases every 10,000 inhabitants. By relating the two data, we see how today in prison you get our life 25 times more than the external society ».
According to these data, Italy is located above the European average as regards suicides in prison, despite being often considered below with regard to the number of generic suicides. “According to the last data of the Council of Europe”, reads the report, “In 2022 the rate of suicides in Italian prisons was more than double the European average: 15 cases every 10,000 people heldin the face of an average of 7.2 cases ».
