MEPs to visit Rebibbia and Poggioreale, Italian jails, to evaluate the situation of our prison system

They will also meet the Italian Minister Orlando and representatives of political parties and of associations

Iacolino (EPP) “The sanctions ruled by the European Court of Justice require timely choices”

A delegation of the European Parliament will be in a mission to Italy to verify the conditions of our prison system, specifically of two among the most overcrowded detention centres of the nation, Rebibbia in Rome and Poggioreale in Naples. The delegation will be headed by the President of the Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, the Spanish MEP Fernando López Aguilar (S&D), and will be composed of Frank Engel (EPP) and Kinga Göncz (S&D), together with three Italian MEPs, Salvatore Iacolino (EPP), Roberta Angelilli (EPP) and Salvatore Caronna (S&D). In addition to visit the prisons, MEPs will beet personalities from the world of institutions and associations: Andrea Orlando, Italian Minister of Justice, the Director of the Department of Prison Administration, Giovanni Tamburino, the President of the Extraordinary Commission for the Respect and Promotion of Human Rights of the Senate, Luigi Manconi, the President of the association Antigone, Patrizio Gonnella, the mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, and a representative for the autonomous Union of the Prison Police (Sappe), Emilio Fattorello.“The sanctions ruled by the European Court of Justice, which have already sentenced our country repeatedly, require timely and clear choices by the Renzi government. The number of detainees waiting for a first grade ruling is too high: about 44 percent. You cannot take the freedom off individuals and in the meantime avoiding to guarantee them a quick trial. When dealing with an individual who has already been sentenced, the prison system shall be committed in re-educating him, giving useful tools for his coming back into the society, once out of the prison system,” said Iacolino. According to the MEP, “Italy cannot avoid a reform of the justice system once more, both for the penal and the civil sectors, able to rip off distortions and inequities.”