Prisons, over 64,000 prisoners out of 46,000 places actually available

In 2025, 82 people took their own lives in prison. Since the beginning of 2026 there are 24 suicides. In less than a year and a half, 106 inmates have committed suicide. Acts of self-harm remain over 2,000 for every 10,000 prisoners: on average, one in five prisoners performs self-harming acts.

There are 73 institutes with a crowding rate of 150% or more, while in eight prisons it even exceeds 200%. These are Lucca (240%), Foggia (225%), Grosseto (213%), Lodi (212%), Milan San Vittore (210%), Brescia Canton Monbello (210%), Udine (210%) and Latina (204%). There are only 22 non-overcrowded institutions in Italy. The association points out that despite the fact that the government announced a prison plan some time ago, the places actually available have actually decreased by 537 since the plan was launched.

From 2018 to 2024, the surveillance courts accepted more than 30 thousand appeals for inhuman or degrading treatment suffered by detained persons. Numbers higher than those that led to the conviction in the Torreggiani v Italia judgment, when there were around 4,000 appeals filed.

According to Antigone, the increase in admissions does not depend on an increase in crime. Crimes in Italia remain substantially stable and in the first months of 2025 they are decreasing by 8%. Prison admissions are also decreasing and the use of pre-trial detention continues to fall, which now concerns 24.1% of prisoners. On the other hand, longer sentences and the effects of the punitive policies adopted by the government, which has introduced more than 55 new offences, more than 60 aggravating circumstances and more than 65 increases in sentences since the beginning of the parliamentary term, are on the rise.

But above all, adds the association, the system continues to fail on the decisive ground: preventing those who leave prison from returning to crime. Today, only 40.8 per cent of prisoners are on their first imprisonment. 45.9% have already been in prison one to four times. 10.6% between five and nine times. 2.7% even more than ten times. This is the demonstration, Antigone again observes, of a system that does not reintegrate and, consequently, only produces more insecurity.

 On the other hand, the data on the activities that would be fundamental for reintegration paths explain why this recidivism is largely underinvested: only 29.3% of prisoners work; 85.6% of them work for the prison administration, often in tasks that are not very spendable outside; only 4.9% work for external subjects. Barely 7.9% attend vocational training courses, only 31% attend school. And barely 3% are enrolled at university.