Antigone’s 13th report on detention conditions, released on May 25, shows the results of the prison monitoring, research and legal assistance work carried out by the NGO during the last 12 months.

The report presents an overview of detention in Italy, its practices, flaws, issues and their consequences on the public's perception of prison and its residents.

'Prison is back'

The report is titled "Prison is back," a nod to the growing population inside Italy's penitentiaries – an especially worrisome trend after recent years saw a gradual reduction in the number of those incarcerated.

In the last six months, Italian prisons have registered 1,500 more inmates, and significant increases in the number of those detained through preventive custody, in the percentage of foreigners detained, and in the number of detainees with sentences shorter than 3 years.

Someone may think there must have been an increase in crime as well, but that is not the case: the number of registered offenses is decreasing.

Why, then, are there so many detainees?

Fostering fear

The reasons can be traced back to different factors, both judicial and, more importantly, political. After a few years of positive initiatives and improvements in prison conditions and the use of alternatives to detention – changes made at the urging of the European Court of Human Rights, through its 2013 judgment in Torreggiani v. Italy, which focused on overcrowding – the situation is again deteriorating.

A broad perception of national insecurity has led to stricter policies, driven by political interests with a view to the next elections. Fostering a perception of danger and insecurity nationally is a means of justifying backward steps in areas of detainees rights and conditions of detention.

A consequence of increasing the number of detained people could well be a return to same situation of severe overcrowding that got Italy into legal trouble several years ago.

Moreover, the perception of insecurity is simply false: as statistics and data collected by Antigone clearly show, the number of crimes is decreasing in general, and collapsing when serious crimes are considered, with homicides at an all-time low.

Antigone’s report put its focus on every aspect of detention: policies (administration, costs, statistics); detainees and living conditions in prison; prison operators and volunteers; and emergencies.

It also reports some detainees’ stories and cases followed by Antigone’s lawyers, crticizing bad practices in an effort to improve detention conditions.

Debunking myths

The section of the report related to emergencies addresses the latest issues that have been objects of interest not only among prison "insiders" but the general public as well. Among the others, a special focus needed to be put on freedom of religion and radicalization in prison, a matter of interest to the EU as well.

The treatment of detainees in Italian prisons is not equal between Catholics and those of other faiths. It is very often the case that the former have access to dedicated spaces for praying and have the assistance of priests, while the latter often do not have a specific place for their practices and do not have official ministers appointed, often instead turning to another detainee as a spiritual guide.

Given the situation, radicalization in prison is a risk that needs to be properly addressed through monitoring and assistance, without overestimating and overreacting to perceived or actual danger.

In this area, too, public opinion plays a big part: Antigone’s report aims to demolish another false perception: that foreigners are responsible for most of the crimes and create distrust and discrimination against them. Again, this is simply false: in Italian prisons, foreigners make up about one third of the total population; the vast majority of detainees are Italian.

Lastly, for the purpose of fighting fake news and fake beliefs, to show an insight of prison that is true and accurate, and to inform people, Antigone has decided to release its report online for the first time. It is available on a digital platform that is completely free to access, with the hope that it will be used as a tool to raise public awareness as widely as possible.