The Italian lower house on Wednesday gave its final approval to measures aimed at easing the prison overcrowding.
The law passed with 153 votes in favor, 89 against, and 1 abstention, after being already approved by the Senate.
The new measures were first introduced by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s cabinet in early July via a decree. The move was made amid concerns about a spike in suicide cases among prison inmates across Italy.
The Italian prison ombudsman has reported that 61 prisoners took their own lives up to Aug. 6 this year, “a high figure” compared to 40 cases in the same period in 2023.
As of July 31, Italy’s prisons hosted 61,133 inmates compared to the official capacity of 51,207, according to statistics by the Ministry of Justice.
Under the law, low-security centers such as therapeutic communities will accommodate some types of prisoners like drug addicts and people serving short sentences or jailed for non-violent crimes.
Common prisoners — those not serving their sentence in high-security jails — will be granted 6 phone calls per month instead of 4, in addition to other minor measures to ease their living conditions.
The new law will streamline procedures for early release and allow the recruiting of 1,000 more jail wardens and managers to boost personnel by 2026 since understaffing is another problem affecting Italy’s jail system.
Italy’s prison staff consists of some 37,700 officers, way short of the 42,850 people needed, according to the Department of Prison Administration.
In 2013, the European Court of Human Rights fined Italy for violating inmates’ rights by confining them to too small places.
At the European Union level, some 11 countries reported prison overcrowding in 2022, according to the latest data by Eurostat. When looking at the occupancy rate — the number of prisoners relative to the capacity of the prison, multiplied by 100 — Cyprus (225.9), France (119.0), Belgium (118.1), Romania (112.2), and Italy (111) had the worst figures.
