Italy moves to relieve overcrowding in its jail cells

Roberto M. stands in the courtyard of one of Italy's highest security prisons, Il Nuovo Complesso di Rebibbia. Despite the 95-degree heat and meager shade, the tall Venetian smiles broadly at the three hours of relative freedom he's been given, for good behavior, to attend a concert.

It will be a brief reprieve from the packed cells of the prison's New Complex, where he is among 1,600 inmates - exactly twice the number it was built to house.

While citizen confidence in Italy's justice system has historically run short, several factors have converged in the past decade to create further strain: a severe shortage of judges, mandatory sentencing for everything from petty theft to mafia crimes, an increased immigrant population, and the government's hesitancy to take on the politically volatile issue of prison reform.

"Prison reform is like this elephant in the House of Deputies that no one wants to talk about," says Maria Ponce De Leon, a professor at St. John's University in Rome who has worked inside the capital's prison system for more than five years. "But the prison system itself is a nasty powderkeg, especially in the summer, when life becomes unbearable for the inmates."

Human Rights Watch has criticized several Western European nations, including Italy, Belgium and Spain, for overcrowding.

Italy's more than 215 prisons, many of them former monasteries and convents built in the 19th century, are swollen to nearly 36 percent over capacity. Designed for 42,000, the system now holds 57,000. About 60 percent of those in prison are actually serving sentences. The rest are awaiting trial or the outcome of an appeal.

While experts agree the judicial system needs newer facilities, higher pay to attract more guards, more judges, and greater flexibility in sentencing prisoners, until this month all major judicial reforms bills passed in the last two years were designed specifically to protect prime minister Silvio Berlusconi from the corruption charges against him.

Last week the lower house of the Italian parliament passed a bill that would free prisoners convicted of a nonviolent crime who have served more than half of their sentence and have less than a year to go. The bill would apply to about 10 percent of the prison population and is expected to pass the Senate.

"With this law, those [prisoners] who wish to redeem themselves can do so outside prison, and we [legislators] have responded to the wishes of the Pope," Luca Volontè, a member of the center-right Unione Democristiana e di Centro party said.

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