The Italian government is weighing the early release of more than 10,000 prisoners as a response to severe overcrowding in the country’s prison system — an unprecedented move for the Meloni government, which has until now opposed any so-called “prison-emptying” measures.
According to Il Giornale, Justice Minister Carlo Nordio has launched a task force to address a long-standing failure to apply existing legal provisions that allow certain prisoners to serve the remainder of their sentences outside prison.
These provisions apply to inmates with less than 24 months left to serve, convicted of non-violent offenses, and who have maintained good behavior while incarcerated.
“There are 10,105 inmates who, by law, could be serving their remaining sentence outside prison,” Nordio said in a statement, acknowledging that while this right is enshrined in law, it has not been respected in practice due to the lack of adequate housing and support structures for released inmates.
If all eligible individuals were transferred to alternative measures, Italy’s prison population — currently at 62,728 — would fall close to the maximum capacity of around 51,000, significantly easing overcrowding.
While stopping short of calling it a new policy, Nordio emphasized that “no exceptional measures are being proposed,” only the enforcement of regulations that already exist but are routinely ignored. The ministry has already begun coordination with supervisory judges and penitentiary officials and expects the task force to conclude its work by September.
The Nordio initiative marks a significant departure from the Italian right’s traditional approach to penal policy and its principle of incarceration as a punitive measure.
Prison overcrowding is a growing problem across much of Europe, with the Council of Europe’s Annual Penal Statistics on Prison Populations’ latest report revealing that 12 nations had more inmates than places available in January 2023.
Cyprus heads those struggling to find room with 166 inmates per 100 places available, followed by Romania (120), France (119), Belgium (115), Hungary (112), Italy (109), and Slovenia (107).
Other nations with more inmates than permitted places available included Greece (103), Sweden (102), North Macedonia (101), and Croatia (101), while Turkey, Ireland, Portugal, Finland, Denmark, and England and Wales are all close to full capacity.
Earlier this year, Sweden sought to address the saturation of its own penal system by striking a deal with Estonia to rent 600 prison places amid reports that its overcrowding issue has soared to over 140 percent capacity in many facilities following a spike in crime in recent years.
