Dear Director Feltri,
Every day, in Italian prisons, there are episodes of violence against prison police officers. The authors are almost always foreign prisoners, largely non -EU citizens. The latest case, only last Sunday, saw a prisoner of the Secondigliano prison already known for previous attacks to set fire to the cell and then attack the policemen who intervened.
If we have to talk about repatriation, why not start here? Why not immediately expel those immigrants who populate our prisons en masse and aggravate their degradation?
Simone
Dear Simone,
You have asked a question as uncomfortable as it is real. The repatriation of foreign prisoners in their countries of origin should be a political priority and an act of common sense. This simple gesture would solve several structural problems of our penitentiary system. Firstly, the load on the shoulders of the prison police would be lightened, forced to operate in often unacceptable conditions. The union of agents has been denounced an explosive situation for years: continuous aggressions, overcrowding, deficiency of organic, massacred shifts. No other state sector is exposed to such a level of risk, violence and abandonment. Secondly, that re -educational function would be favored that the Constitution assigns to prison. But what recovery can there be in crammed, dirty cells without tools, where do you live as beasts? Nobody. Overcrowding is the first cause of the failure of the penitentiary system, and the numbers speak clearly. According to the latest data of the DAP (Department of the prison administration), updated to 31 May 2025, in the face of a regulatory capacity of 51,296 places, the prisoners are 62,761, of which 19,810 foreigners. A quick calculation is enough: if these subjects were repatriated, the total number would drop to 42,951, well below the maximum limit. The cells would return livable. The hygienic conditions would improve. The internal climate would be less tense. And above all we would return to distinguish between those who have the right to be in Italy and who does not. But there is more: each prisoner costs 150 euros per day. Translated: almost 3 million euros per day to maintain only foreign prisoners, which become 90 million per month, or over one billion per year. A monstrous figure, which could be invested to improve the prisons themselves, hire staff, activate recovery programs, offer more dignified conditions to those who really intend to reintegrate into society. Instead, we continue to finance the prison stay of subjects who, in most cases, should not even be on our territory. There is no obligation to maintain those who violated the law and the boundaries of the state. The prison cannot become a camouflaged reception center, nor a free stay for those who do not intend to respect the rules. Are we a civilized country? Well.
Then let’s stop dealing with those who, of civilization, mockens every day. And we begin to really respect those who bring the uniform, those who live inside the prisons to work, those who still believe in the function of the penalty as an opportunity for rebirth.
Everything else is hypocrisy.