BRESCIA — “Pardon! Pardon!” They repeat it in chorus, eighty, maybe a hundred voices, an almost joyous chorus, surely improvised under the rectangle of blue sky that illuminates the concrete tank where people go during yard time, to run after a ball, to stretch their legs and walk around, since we are in a “walking yard.”
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Built more than a century ago to hold a maximum of 40 inmates, it now hosts a 150: This is the most overcrowded prison in Italy, with an overcapacity of 200%. In May 2024, up to 391 people are locked inside cells that should hold no more than 185.
Welcome to Canton Mombello, a prison in Brescia, east of Milan, renamed for Nerio Fischione, a prison police officer who died in 1974 to prevent the escape of three inmates. When it originally opened in 1910, the prison was intended to house only prisoners awaiting trial. Today, at least two-thirds are permanent inmates.
Welcome to Canton Mombello
It’s a city prison with 55% foreigners, mostly from the Maghreb area, and with more than 50 young adults, a number that has doubled in the past two years. That increase is due to recent laws that have facilitated the admission into prison of people who are not yet adults (and who therefore should be in juvenile institutions), but who inevitably end up becoming ones, and at a high price, as soon as they set foot in adult jails.
“Out of 391 inmates, 220 have psychiatric problems, and 150 have drug addictions.”
Finally, the “worst prison in Italy” is missing half of its psychologists and 40 of 230 police officers, especially in the chain of command.
Here, as in the other 189 overcrowded Italian prisons, pardon is a magic word: hope, refrain, illusion, sometimes it is a desperate cry. Because it is one thing to pay for one’s sins with the loss of freedom — in a sensible, industrious place and time, and on a path to social reintegration.
But it is quite another thing is to live a senseless time, each day, losing further pieces of oneself: intimacy, health, privacy, affections and above all dignity. Indeed, Italy’s constitution forbids it. Yet that is what prison is today: a loss of dignity.
Pardon is a utopia
So listen to us, listen to our voices that warn almost in a chorus against prison turning into revenge of the state.
They know of course: these days pardon is a utopia. These are the times of populism, of zero tolerance with the fragile, of rotting in jail. But the legislature’s inaction would be a crime. While waiting for a structural solution, there is one way: special early release, with the reduction of 2 years to 75 days (and then 60), instead of the usual 45, for each semester of sentence served profitably.
That is what the Giachetti bill proposes. It is being debated in Parliament, not without unwarranted alarmism and political resistance from the majority. That “discount” would allow ordinary prisoners who have shown a positive path to regain dignity, even before freedom.
“Why on earth,” they ask in Canton Mombello, “would granting the 75 days be seen as a failure of the government instead of a willingness to take a first step toward prison improvement?”
Let’s watch and listen, along with director Francesca Paola Lucrezi, who divides her time between Canton Mombello and Verziano, Brescia’s other prison, which is also overcrowded (130 inmates for 70 places). That generates, among other things, a paradox: “In Brescia, the labor shortage has brought down employers’ prejudice toward inmates, so the demand for labor is high. The supply would be high, too, if the sections of Verziano that house Article 21s (workers on the outside) and almost-free were not saturated. Because of this, I cannot transfer inmates there who would instead be entitled to either regime.”
Inside the cells of hell
On the second floor of building in the northern section of Canton Mombello, there are common, medium-security inmates. The cells are kept closed and are opened only for yard time or for rare activities. Bunk beds are stacked high to the ceiling, and some cells have as many as 15.
The inmates are of different ages, ethnicities, religions and languages. There are those who smoke, and those who cannot stand smoking; those who have drug addictions, and those with psychiatric disorders. Hot water flows only from the shower, a pipe that drains into a dilapidated old squat toilet, which is shared by all the cell’s tenants.
“It’s like being locked in an elevator. This year, 35 inmates have chosen to get off by committing suicide.”
When it is not in use, the bathroom doubles as a kitchen — and because there are 15 inmates, it is often in use. They eat in shifts, because there is not room for everyone— just as they cannot all stand up at same time, or sleep if others are talking.
The malaise grows, the aggression as well. Winter is too cold, summer too hot. Stress and health are always at risk. In overcrowded, closed cells, infectious diseases spread more easily, because cockroaches, lice, fleas, mites and mice multiply. The use of psychotropic drugs is extremely high.
Stuck in an elevator
“Out of 391 inmates, 220 have psychiatric problems, and 150 have drug addictions — which leaves very few unconcerned,” says one inmate, “and when a medical examination is urgent, you can’t get a doctor or a psychologist right away. Not to mention work.” Only 14 inmates work for two outside cooperatives and 60 are employed by the administration.
“There are too many of us,” explains another, “It’s like being locked in an elevator with so many people. In real life, the door opens at some point. But in prison, it never does. And this year, 35 people have already chosen to get off the elevator by committing suicide.”
And here we are at the walking yards. It is there that, after a few moments of indecision, the rhythmic chorus about the pardon and the request to be heard rises.
“The next ones who come in will end up on the rooftops,” one inmate jokes about the saturation level of this ancient prison. Their only hope is proposal for early release at 75 days, which would decrease the prison population by 25% — a “fair compromise,” they wisely argue, lest Italy’s justice system also lose its dignity.
