173 Italian Prisons

Italy has proven if any political party wants a winning ticket to win electoral consensus they have to crack down on crime- and mean it. That is why when it comes to crime, European countries must all speak with one voice- none of this molly codling of avant-garde psychological excuses for not dealing out punishment when it is due. The first duty of any community is to protect its people from the onslaught of viciousness.

Statistics show, as tonight’s news stated, one prisoner in three comes from outside Italy. As I mentioned in the previous post, there are 60 thousands detainees for a prison which may contain at the most 40 thousand places, hence prisoners from abroad account for the extra third of overcrowding.

Italian Minister of Justice, Angelino Alfano has stated more than once that there will be no more “indulto” that is, “pardons” but that the European Community must intervene by creating the necessary treaties or giving resources to those member states that suffer most from this problem in a manner that will enable them to construct new jails.

The answer was not long in coming from the European Community. Although the management of justice is to be carried out by each state individually but the European Commission is ready to ensure the transferral of detainees from one member state to another.

Emilio Fede, the Rete 4 National TV journalist comments that one must ensure these treaties which are to be created will warrant detainees from abroad return to their country of origin where they will serve their sentence in full. Of this we have to be assured, since the greatest part of overcrowding is caused by detainees from another country.