VARESE – Mobilize to change prisons in Italy and stop suicides behind bars. «Stop the blood trail»: an appeal that comes from Criminal Chamber of Varesewho today – Thursday 20 June – met at Villa Mirabello to talk about the most worrying aspects of the phenomenon and how to deal with it, from a human perspective and with regulatory interventions.
The number of suicides
The event was announced starting from a number: 44 suicides in prison since the beginning of the year. Which became 45 just as today’s meeting was underway, with the news arriving from the Novara penitentiary, where a 20-year-old of foreign origin was found hanging in his celljust in the last few hours.
The prisoner’s state of mind
As mentioned, there are two channels within which interventions can be directed. Starting with greater attention and sensitivity to the state of mind of prisoners. The key concept, explained Dr Franco Grilloa psychiatrist who has been working in the Varese prison for years, is not to underestimate the reactions of those in prison in the most delicate moments of detention: «The periods close to trials, those following a conviction, the months preceding release, the first after entering prison, but also those following the diagnosis of a serious illness or the loss of a close relative». It is in these phases, the expert underlined, that the thought of ending it can begin to take root in the head of a person deprived of freedom.
The most urgent interventions
Then there is the plan of concrete interventions, starting with the most urgent ones: «Amnesty, access to early release in a more rapid manner, which does not mean less controlled, and the redevelopment of prisons so that the time spent behind bars bars really makes sense,” the lawyer said Fabio Margarini, president of the Criminal Chamber of Varese. The bill signed by the deputy deals with early release Roberto Giachetti (Italia Viva), which will arrive in the Chamber next week, with the proposal to go from 45 to 60 days of sentence discount, every six months, for good behavior.
The alternative to prison
From early release to alternative measures to prison, another central theme: “Extra-mural experiences have a positive outcome in almost all cases, and the failures are limited”, highlighted the doctor Giulia Vassalli, supervisory magistrate of the Court of Varese. However, there is a paradox in our system: sometimes it is not the dangerous person who ends up in prison, but the one who does not have the means (for example a house to stay in) to access measures other than detention.
Prison in numbers
The numbers regarding the phenomenon are many and sobering: 16 prisoners awaiting trial who have taken their own lives since the beginning of 2024; 61 thousand prisoners compared to a maximum capacity in Italian prisons of approximately 51 thousand places; 300 more prisoners every month and a suicide rate (2019 data) and for the population prison has reached 8.7 cases per 10 thousand people: that of society outside prison has stopped at 0.66.
Mental illness
Prisoners with psychiatric problems should be “specially monitored” in terms of preventing suicide and violence more generally. But at present there is a lack of specific measures for psychiatric treatment in prison, where there are often sick and socially dangerous subjects who should stay elsewhere, i.e. in the Residences for the execution of security measures (Rems). But the waiting lists to access are long and the places in the structures that have replaced the judicial psychiatric hospitals are limited.
Women and prison
References to the conditions of women behind bars are limited, and sometimes almost completely absent, when talking about prison. The lawyer is taking care of it Elisabetta Brusa, as a member of the Prison Commission of the Forensic Congressional Body: «There are almost 3 thousand female prisoners in Italy, a quarter of the prison population. And there are only four prisons dedicated to women. Cells, toilets, outdoor spaces: almost everything in prison is designed for prisoners. And not for the inmates. There are real discriminations in treatments, from hygiene care to prevention visits. Talking about it, and continuing to do so, is the first step in trying to change things.”
To stop suicides in prison, a double meeting of the Criminal Chamber of Busto
