Italy : Antigone calls for solution

Antigone is monitoring the consequences of the COVI-19 outbreak on the Italian prison system. They report the timeline of events and shared their recommendations.

The last weeks have been devastating for prisoners in Italy. The overcrowded Italian prison system found itself unprepared for the sanitary situation caused by the Coronavirus outbreak. Antigone is an Italian human rights NGO focusing on the penal and penitentiary systems. They monitored the situation and report on the events, week by week.

Antigone shared their recommendations with the Italian authorities to highlight the urgency of the problem. Their recent document Prisons in Italy at the time of Corona virus: Antigone’s work has been shared on the 15 of March 2020 to draw on their experience and alert the rest of the world.

The suspensions of visitation rights are followed by protests in several prisons throughout the country

Timeline of events

February 22nd
The Italian Department of Penitentiary Administration circulates an internal regulation: all prison workers, volunteers and relatives of inmates who live in the “red zones” (high contamination areas) should not enter prisons. Transfers to and from “red zones” are suspended, as well as activities within prisons - especially those carried out by outsiders. In most of the affected areas, family visits are completely suspended. In other parts, visits are restricted to one family member per prisoner.
March 5th
Antigone puts forward an urgent proposal to the Ministry of Justice, aiming to maintain family ties. Since the usual allocated time is one ten-minute phone call per week, they suggest increasing this to one call per day. It is suggested that video calls might replace family visits.
March 8th
The Council of Ministers orders the full suspension of family visits in all prison, and allows increased access to phone and video calls. Not all facilities apply the changes promptly.The suspensions of visitation rights are followed by protests in several prisons throughout the country. Bars of cells are beaten and mattresses are burned. There are reports of escapes from wards to the building roofs. Some detainees escape from the Foggia prison. An uprising erupts in the Modena penitentiary institute: some inmates break into the infirmary, obtain medicines and overdose. Twelve of them are confirmed to have died. Riots and protests are reported in 27 prisons in Italy. The situation calms down by the end of Monday 9th.

Overcrowding makes separation measures to contain the disease practically impossible

Recommendations

The penitentiary system in Italy has been overcrowded for years, with an estimated occupancy rate of 130%. The risk posed by the Coronavirus outbreak was therefore obvious: overcrowding makes separation measures to contain the disease practically impossible.

Antigone has drawn up proposals to relieve the pressure on the prison system during this critical time. The proposals have been submitted to Prison Administrations, Surveillance Judges and the Minister of Justice. They include the following measures:

Each penitentiary facility management should purchase one smartphone for every hundred prisoners, and activate a paid mobile data card. Phones should allow, under the visual control of a penitentiary police officer, a daily 20-minute phone or video call for each prisoner to the authorized numbers.
Probation in special cases Affidamento in prova in casi particolari) : art. 47-bis of Law 354/75 should be extended to all those whose health problems could be aggravated by the Coronavirus. TThis measure could also be applied for therapeutic reasons.
Home detention should be extended to those whose health problems could be aggravated by the Coronavirus (without distinction of sentence length) : art. 47-ter, §1, of Law 354/75
All prisoners benefitting from semi-freedom measures (Semi-libertà) should be allowed to spend the night in home detention.
Prison sentences should be commuted to home detention measures for those awaiting the execution of their sentence without a pre-trial detention measure (except for specific and duly justified cases).
Home detention should be extended to those serving sentences up to thirty-six months, or with a remaining sentence of that length (Law 199 of 2010, confirmed by Law 146 of 2013).