More than once

Publish date 13-09-2022

by Chiara Genisio

Crimes are decreasing, but the recidivism rate is increasing. The XVIII report on prisons produced by the Antigone Association leaves no doubt. Anyone serving a sentence in Italian prisons sooner or later returns there. What is defeated is the constitutional principle that indicates the prison as a place that must aim at the re-education of the condemned.

The numbers presented in the dossier show that despite a decrease in crimes (-12.6%) compared to 2019, the rate of recidivism has increased. On average 2.37 crimes per prisoner, of which the most common are those against property (31 thousand), against the person (23 thousand) and violations of drug legislation (19 thousand). Violations of the law on weapons (9,249), crimes against the public administration (8,685), mafia-type ex 416bis (7,274) and against the administration of justice (6,471) follow at a significant distance. Only 38% of inmates are in their first incarceration. The remaining 62% had already been in prison at least one other time. 18% have already passed through prison before at least 5 times or more.

The percentage of those who have been there several times falls for foreigners, but rises for Italians, for whom one would imagine instead that social reintegration paths are easier. On average, homicides are decreasing, but women continue to be at least half of the victims of crimes that are almost entirely committed within the family.

The Italian prisons are still too crowded, during the period of Covid the number of inmates had drastically dropped, in the last year it started to grow again, with an overcrowding rate of 107.04, an underestimated figure because it does not take into account the reality of many institutes which, for small or large maintenance jobs, have a real capacity that is often less than the official one. The average age of prisoners is growing, almost 10% are over 60. Those who are serving a sentence with less than 40 years of age, who have long been the majority of the prison population, have been a minority since 2015. Their percentage as of December 31, 2021 stopped at 45%. The over 40s were therefore 55%, the over 60s 9.5% (while 10 years earlier they did not even reach 5%).

A little curiosity that provides the index of the lack of dignity in many places of detention: only 58.3% of the institutions have a bidet for women. Of the 24 institutions with female prisoners visited by Antigone in 2021, 62.5% had a gynecology service and 21.7% an obstetrics service. Only in 58.3% of the institutions visited the cells were equipped with bidets, as required by the implementing regulation for more than twenty years.


Chiara Genisio
NP May 2022

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