Since 1991, Antigone Association, has played a central role in monitoring detention conditions and defending human rights within Italy’s criminal justice system. Its annual reports remain the most comprehensive and reliable source of information on the realities of incarceration in Italy.  ​“Breathless” is the title of the latest publication which presents an alarming snapshot of the Italian prison system.  Among the most critical data, the issue of prison overcrowding emerges once again: 58 of the 190 penal institutions across the country report an overcrowding rate equal to or exceeding 150%, with the San Vittore prison in Milan, reaching an astonishing 220%.

Contrary to what one might think, the phenomenon does not concern only adult institutions: out of the 17 Juvenile Penal Institutions, 9 are overcrowded. The situation is so critical that the government has decided to convert a section of the adult prison in Dozza, Bologna, into a juvenile facility.

In such a context, protests by incarcerated individuals appear to be an understandable reaction to living conditions deemed inhumane by many human rights organizations. However, the Security Decree 2025 seeks to introduce the crime of prison revolt, a measure that risks repressing dissent while ignoring the structural causes of the prison system’s issues.

Further exacerbating this critical picture is the severe shortage of personnel, particularly the figure of educators, whose role is central in the rehabilitation and reintegration process of incarcerated individuals. As of May 2025, the number of educators in institutions was 963, compared to a staffing plan that calls for 1.040 – a gap that seriously undermines the quality of rehabilitative interventions.

An equally dramatic issue is mental health in prison. Since 2022, when the crisis related to inmate suicides came to light, the problem has only worsened. Despite a slight decrease in 2023, the year 2024 recorded the highest number of suicides ever reported: 91 cases, compared to 85 in 2022.

Thanks to Law No. 110 of July 14, 2017, which introduced Articles 613-bis (“Torture”) and 613-ter (“Instigation by a public official to commit torture”) into the Italian Penal Code, a serious legal gap was finally addressed — as required by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the 2015 ruling “Cestaro v. Italy.” This legislative breakthrough proved to be fundamental: in 2021, for the first time, the Ferrara Court convicted a prison officer for the crime of torture under Article 613-bis, finding him guilty of inflicting severe suffering on a detainee. As of today, the Antigone Association is a civil party in five criminal proceedings involving cases of violence, torture, abuse, ill-treatment, or deaths that occurred in prisons in various Italian cities, including Venice, Turin, Reggio Emilia, and Florence.

The proposals put forward by Antigone to address prison overcrowding:

1. Partial amnesty for short sentences: Granting a clemency measure for inmates who have less than two years of prison time remaining;
2. Collectively decided alternative measures: Extraordinary convening of Disciplinary Councils to assess, in a collegial manner, the granting of benefits such as pardon or other alternative measures for those with less than one year of sentence remaining;
3. Suspension of new imprisonments in case of overcrowding: Temporary halt of new incarcerations, except in exceptional cases, if there are no available spots in compliance with the prison’s official capacity.