It's called Tutto chiuso — All Locked Up — and the title is already an indictment. The new annual Antigone report on detention conditions in Italy, the result of 102 visits conducted across the country by around a hundred volunteers authorised by the Ministry of Justice, paints a picture of a prison system that has chosen the path of closure: towards the outside world, as one might expect of prisons, but also towards the inmates themselves, civil society, and any real prospect of rehabilitation and reintegration.

All locked up, and overcrowded

The starting point is overcrowding, now spiralling out of control: as of 30 April 2026, Italian prisons held 64,436 people against an actual capacity of 46,318 places — an occupancy rate of 139.1 per cent. These are not abstract numbers, but bodies crammed into cells that are often dilapidated, where even showers are lacking (53 institutions), or where hot water is absent when showers do exist (47), and where in 23 facilities inmates cook in the same space as the bathroom. Seventy-three institutions have an occupancy rate of 150 per cent or above, which literally means three people living in a cell designed for two. Eight have even exceeded 200 per cent: Lucca, Foggia, Grosseto, Lodi, Milano San Vittore, Brescia Canton Monbello, Udine, Latina. Only 22 prisons across the whole of Italy have yet to reach full capacity. Despite the government having launched a prison plan at the start of 2025, the number of available places has actually fallen by 537 since January of that year, largely due to

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Carceri: affollamento medio al 139%, rallenta il sistema delle misure alternative
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19 mag 2026 · Apri su X →

The circulars that are shutting down activities

The most worrying development in the report is not, however, about numbers alone, but about the fact that the rehabilitative function of prisons — the very purpose for which such institutions exist under the Constitution — is progressively being eroded. Partly because overcrowding itself makes it impossible to manage inmates and organise their days, but also, according to Antigone, as the result of a deliberate political choice: through a series of administrative circulars, the Department of Penitentiary Administration (Dap) has been progressively closing prisons off from activities, civil society, and hope. Since 2022, more than 60 per cent of inmates have been spending almost their entire day in their cells, leaving only for outdoor exercise periods. Inmates held in the High Security circuit — a special section of Italian penal institutions reserved for those convicted of or charged with organised crime, mafia association, drug trafficking and terrorism offences — are no longer permitted to socialise in corridor areas of their wings. An October 2025 circular made it compulsory to obtain prior authorisation from the central Dap for any initiative involving people from outside entering institutions with at least one High Security section — that is, around 70 prisons out of 189, more than one third of the total.

The Antigone report cites some practical outcomes of this crackdown: in Padova, the long-established editorial team of Ristretti Orizzonti, the newspaper produced from the local Casa di Reclusione and the Istituto di Pena Femminile della Giudecca, faces increasing obstacles; in Saluzzo, in Piedmont, a meeting between inmates and students as part of the Salone del Libro di Torino was banned; across Italy, reading workshops and theatre activities have been cancelled or curtailed. Only in May 2026, faced with protests, did the Dap partially reverse course — but solely for the Medium Security category.

The figures behind a silent massacre

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Carceri italiane, il nuovo rapporto Antigone: peggiora il clima tra aggressioni, tensioni, sovraffollamento e suicidi rainews.it/articoli/2026/…

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Then there is the issue that often makes the news: in 2025 at least 82 people took their own lives in prison, and since the start of 2026 a further 24 have already been recorded, bringing the total to 106 in just over a year and a half. Among them, the youngest was 17 years old: a Tunisian boy who had arrived in Italy unaccompanied, who died just hours after being placed in detention at the juvenile penal institution in Treviso. The rate stands at 13 suicides per 10,000 inmates — one of the highest figures recorded in the past thirty years. Seventy-five per cent of these extreme acts took place in closed-custody wings, the most restrictive type. Among women too the phenomenon has reached record levels: six suicides in 2025 and one in 2026, the highest number ever recorded. Overall, 2025 is the year with the most deaths in prison since 1992, as far back as records go. And while suicides have fallen slightly compared to 2024, acts of self-harm have not decreased: on average, one in five inmates engages in self-harming behaviour.

Sedatives instead of care

Almost half of all inmates — 46.5 per cent — use sedatives or hypnotics. Twenty-one per cent use mood stabilisers, antipsychotics or antidepressants, not because a structured care system is in place, but because mental distress is being "managed" through pharmacology, often outside any defined diagnostic framework. The figures for dedicated mental health staff speak for themselves: on average, for every 100 inmates, a psychiatrist is present for seven hours a week, a psychologist for sixteen. In a prison holding 300 people, that amounts to three hours of psychiatric presence per day.

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🔵Nelle carceri italiane è raddoppiato il numero dei bambini reclusi con detenute madri, anche per mancanza di pene alternative. Lo sostiene il rapporto @AntigoneOnlus. Sovraffollamento al 139,1%. In aumento anche le aggressioni e rivolte. Da inizio anno i suicidi sono stati 24.

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One of the most alarming figures concerns children. As of 31 March 2026, there were 26 minors held with their mothers in Italian prisons — a sharp increase from just 11 a year earlier. A doubling directly caused by the security decree, the Antigone report notes, which abolished the mandatory deferral of sentence enforcement for pregnant women or those with children under one year of age.

A Marshall Plan for prisons

The growth in the prison population, the report emphasises, is not due to an increase in crime — since criminality in Italy is substantially stable — nor to greater use of pre-trial detention. The reasons are instead longer sentences, alternative measures that are slowing down, and a reintegration system that is not working, as evidenced by the fact that only 40 per cent of inmates are serving their first prison sentence, while 45.9 per cent had already been incarcerated between one and four times and almost 3 per cent had been imprisoned more than ten times. Fewer than 30 per cent of inmates work, in most cases for the prison administration, and only 7.9 per cent have attended a vocational training course. A circle that closes in on itself: those who leave without tools come back. And those who come back weigh on a system already on the verge of collapse.

Faced with this scenario, Antigone is calling on the government for a radical change of course — a kind of "Marshall Plan" for prisons, set out in fifteen points, that includes withdrawing all the circulars that have closed off the prison system, urgent measures to reduce overcrowding, access to house arrest for those with fewer than 12 months left to serve, investment in work and vocational training, the right to daily phone calls for inmates in medium security, a reduction in the use of solitary confinement, and the abolition of the offence of prison revolt — also contained in the security decree — which risks punishing even non-violent disobedience. Prison, Antigone reminds us, is not a place separate from society, but a mirror of how a community chooses to treat its most vulnerable people. What can be read in the 2025 report is a mirror that would not flatter us.