Citing chronic overcrowding in the nation’s prisons, justice minister Angelino Alfano recently announced his intention to launch a set of reforms that would take children out of correctional institutes, make use of electronic bracelets for non-dangerous prisoners and send foreign prisoners back to their home countries.
Alfano’s mission is to ease congestion in Italy’s prisons. At present, Italy has more than 57,000 inmates yet capacity for only 43,000 spots. Calling the Indulto Law a ‘failure’ for its high rate of recidivism, Alfano recently told the Italian press that country’s prisons are dangerously overburdened and need to be relieved fast in order to avoid violence.
Seeking viable solutions to the growing national prison ‘emergency’, Alfano recently proposed the repatriation of some 3,300 foreign prisoners and the use of an electronic bracelet for 4,100 inmates who are to be assigned to house arrest. These measures would be applicable to only those prisoners who have less than two years left to serve. The justice minister also discussed construction of new prisons.
