Analysis Opinion

Italy: a government plan for harsher prison conditions

Only vendetta and no justice in the Five Star Movement - Lega’s governing contract for Italy

Five Star Movement - Lega’s governing contract poses some problems: here is what Giuseppe Mosconi Professor of Sociology of Law and President of Antigone Veneto thinks

At first reading, Chapter 12 of the Five Star Movement and Lega’s government plan (or “government contract,” as they call it) seems to highlight two important points with regard to justice: the rationale according to which more serious and “certain” penalties pave the way for better security measures; and the need for harsher prison conditions, as everyone who commits a crime deserves to be punished.

The criminal justice system has been contested as ineffective by the victims themselves

"The program wishes the cancellation of alternative measures to detention that were already introduced back in 1975"

An even harsher and irreversible regime for the most serious crimes

"If a stranger dares to come in my yard, I am entitled to shoot him [...] is tantamount to promoting a culture that supports vengeance, a kind of justice that takes the form of a vendetta of the State"

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Antigone

NGO SPECIALISED IN DEFENDING THE RIGHTS OF PRISONERS

The Antigone association, a NGO specialising in defending the rights of prisoners, is the organisation coordinating with Prison Insider in Italy.