“Prison today in Italy, and particularly in Campania, is a merciless picture: overcrowding, presence of prisoners with dual diagnoses, absence of psychiatrists and psychologists, suicide rate twenty times higher than that of free people. The uncertainties and resistance to change lead our penitentiary system to have to face various and strong critical issues”. This was stated by the Campania Guarantor of people subjected to measures restrictive of personal freedom, Samuele Ciambriello, presenting the Report for the year 2023 in the Chamber of the Regional Council of Campania yesterday, in collaboration with the Regional Observatory on prison life, and with the participation of the president of the College of the National Guarantor of the Rights of Persons Deprived of Personal Liberty, Felice Maurizio D’Ettore, the magistrate of the Surveillance Court, Francesco Chiaromonte, the head of the Regional Observatory on Detention, Alessia D’Aniello. “As of 31 December last year, there were 7,330 prisoners present in Campania, of which 898 foreigners and 350 women – Ciambriello specified -, Campania is the second region in terms of overcrowding, the first region is Lombardy, in particular there are three the Campania prisons which present the highest percentages of overcrowding: Pozzuoli, with an overcrowding index of 169.39%, Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi (166.08%), Benevento (171.61%). As of 24 March 2024 – continued the Guarantor – in our region there are, for a sentence imposed: 44 prisoners with a sentence of up to 8 months, 109 prisoners with a sentence of up to one year, 254 prisoners with a sentence of 1-2 years, 503 prisoners with a residual sentence of up to 8 months, 840 up to one year, 956 up to 1-2 years, for a total of 2706 prisoners with a residual sentence. Half of the prisoners have to serve less than two years. For the latter, it would be enough – he highlighted – to apply the alternative measures provided for by our legislation to compensate for prison overcrowding in our region”. The report also highlights the numbers that summarize the activities carried out by the Guarantor of people subjected to measures restrictive of personal freedom in the Campania Region, and by its staff, in the reference year: “1542 prisoners met personally, 136 health interventions, 190 interventions proposed to the Management and the legal-pedagogical areas, 24 interventions to the Supervisory Judiciary, 12 interventions to the Prosecutor’s Office, 49 interventions including reminders, reports and transfer requests to the Penitentiary Administration Department, 30 interventions including reports, reminders and transfer requests to the Superintendency for the penitentiary administration” the words of Samuele Ciambriello in yesterday’s conference. “This Guarantor is carrying out intense dialogue with the Government to find solutions to the problems of the prison world, starting with that of overcrowding, for which systemic measures are necessary which require funds” said D’Ettore who, during of his speech, he focused, among other things, on the topic of penitentiary medicine, so that the right to health “is fully guaranteed”, and on the importance of the work carried out by the Penitentiary Police which, “with commitment and self-sacrifice, does burdened with the many problems of detained people”. Ciambriello also spoke about the relationship with the National Guarantor. “The National Guarantor, as provided for by the founding law, has direct competence with Parliament to discuss legislative proposals and, in this sense, has filed its report with data and analyzes relating to the situation of the entire prison system. Without prejudice to this autonomy, as national spokesperson of the Conference of Territorial Guarantors, I reiterate that our intent is to strengthen collaboration with the College of the National Guarantor to give concrete answers on individual issues, but also of a general nature”. And he added: “During my annual report I reiterated, together with the president of the College of the National Guarantor of the Rights of Persons Deprived of Personal Liberty, that measures of a systemic nature are needed, also using alternative measures that already exist; in this sense I also remembered that there are thousands of people who have to serve a sentence of less than 2 years. In Italy there are 5,080 people in prison with a residual sentence of 8 months, of which 503 are in my Region” added Ciambriello.
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