Prisons, Alemanno: a pardon is needed, but we know it won’t happen
The former mayor of Rome, following his release from prison: ‘I’ve asked for a meeting with Nordio; I don’t think he realises the situation in prisons’
“Logic would suggest there should be a pardon, but we know it won’t happen.” This is according to the former mayor of Rome Gianni Alemanno, interviewed on Radio 24 by Simone Spetia for the programme 24 Mattino, two days after his release from Rebibbia prison, where he served a sentence of one year, 5 months and 24 days for influence peddling and abuse of office as part of the “Mondo di Mezzo” investigation.
“We need,” says Alemanno, “prisons that actually work, not ones that fuel crime. We need a merit-based prison system. One of the solutions is the Giachetti Act.” Alemanno points out that the Act “had also met with the approval of the President of the Senate Ignazio La Russa” and “substantially increases sentence reductions for good behaviour”. “In this way, a few thousand people could be released, making the situation more manageable”
Alemanno asked ‘to meet the Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio, and speak to him because, in my view, he does not realise the situation in the prisons, which is on the verge of exploding and we need to find a way out of it’.
The former mayor of the capital recalled that, at the age of twenty, he had been in prison for ‘a matter of youthful activism’: ‘I found myself in the same wing and, by chance, in the very same cell, but today the situation has completely changed. Forty years ago, Rebibbia was a neat, clean and almost deserted ‘student hall of residence’. Now it’s chaos, with overcrowding that is about to reach its maximum limits.”
Alemanno also spoke about politics and his relationship with Roberto Vannacci. ‘He is the new face of politics’ who ‘breaks with political correctness. He has a life story that no other politician has’. “I’ll get to work on his programme,” he concluded.
