THEJail is a male place. Both because, in practice, there are many more men in prison, and because there is often a lack of female thinking about prison: in short, women suffer, even in this part of the world, the weight of a system shaped on male needs, needs and peculiarities. This is what results from “On the side of Antigone”, first report on women prisoners in Italy presented on the occasion of 8 March by the association “for rights and guarantees in the penal system” Antigone. A report dedicated, in fact, to all the Antigoni who are in Italian prisonswith reference to the tragedy of Sophocles which stages the conflict between male power, and the law, and the female body, and justice.
Prison, a system shaped on male needs
The report offers a comprehensive look at all prisons and women’s sections in our country, including juvenile prisons and wards that house trans female prisoners placed in women’s sections. “We have been monitoring the reality of women’s prisons for over 25 years,” explains Susanna Marietti, Antigone national coordinator and editor of the report. The presence of women prisoners in Italian prisons has been stagnating for many years at around the current 4.2%. There were 2,392 women present in Italian prisons as of 31 January 2023, including 15 mothers with 17 children in tow.
“However, it is the first time that they have visited each prison and each section dedicated to female prisoners,” continues Marietti. «And what is surprising is that it is still not possible, in the prison world, to have aspecific attention to the female component of the population, numerically crushed by the male population”.
The rights of women prisoners, the 10 proposals of Antigone
Hence the 10 proposals of the association for the rights of women prisoners.
1. First of all, explains Marietti, «It should be established in the Department of Penitentiary Administration a office dealing with women’s detention, which is to be led by gender policy experts. Only in this way do the specific needs of women not risk being lost in the great mass of male needs».
2. Positive actions should also be envisaged aimed at removing the obstacles that women encounter inaccess to work, education, professional training.
3. Secure overnight rooms that meet specifications hygiene and sanitary needs (including sanitary pads).
4. Women prisoners must be ensured a prevention and rehabilitation service female cancer screening equivalent to that of free women.
How many inmates who are victims of abuse
5. Among the various specific needs, Marietti underlines the one relating to psychological screeningto detect any abuse: «Many women who arrive in prison come from situations of abuse of which they are not even aware». If episodes of sexual violence or other abuse or ill-treatment are ascertained or reported during detention, the woman must be promptly informed of her right to turn to the judicial authority.
6. Not only that, “the woman victim of violence taken care of from a health, psychological and social point of view during detention must be ensured continuity of care once out».
7. In prisons where women are inmates there must be adequately trained and specialized staff on gender-based violence. All personnel assigned to work with women prisoners should receive training on gender-specific needs and the rights of women prisoners.
Gender discrimination is also in prison
8. Actions aimed at avoiding any form of discrimination based on gender towards women prison staff at all levels.
9. In accordance with the principle that life in prison should approximate as much as possible to that in the free community, joint daytime activities should be foreseen in all prisons hosting both men and women, so as to increase opportunities especially for women inmates.
10. Prisons and women’s sections must be based as much as possible on the model of mitigated custody.
Women prisoners, for which crimes
These are proposals made on the basis of the data collected in the report. For example, the numbers and the type of crime. Reported mostly for theft (20.2%), fraud (23.2%), exploitation or aiding and abetting of prostitution (25.8%), mafia-type criminal association (16.8%), women in prison are 8 women for every 100,000 female inhabitants. In the face of 182 men detained for every 100,000 male inhabitants and 17 transgender people detained for every 100,000 transgender inhabitants.
A quarter of the total are held in four women’s prisons (in Trani, Pozzuoli, Rome and Venice). The Institute with attenuated custody of Lauro hosts 9 mother prisoners and three other small ICAMs host 5 women in total. The other 1,779 women are substantially distributed in the 44 women’s sections housed within men’s prisons. With its 334 inmates (118 foreign), the Roman women’s prison of Rebibbia is the largest in Europe.
Shorter sentences than men
In percentage terms, men gather sentences of more than ten years’ imprisonment or life imprisonment much more than women. Vice versa, the latter yes
they thicken in percentage sentences of up to seven years in prison much more than it happens for men. There are thirty life sentences. The presence of foreign women, especially Romanian, Nigerian and Bulgarian, out of all women prisoners is 30.5%. In 2013, the percentage of foreign women out of the total number of women was 40.05%.
Mental distress in female prisoners
Significant are the data that monitor the mental distress in female prisoners. Women with serious psychiatric diagnoses are 12.4% of those present, against 9.2% of those present in all the institutions visited in 2022, and regularly use psychiatric drugs 63.8% of those present, against 41.6% of the total. Mental discomfort therefore appears to be more significant among women. The acts of self harm among women there were 30.8 for every 100 present, against 15 in institutions that house only men.
«Often, as with all prisoners in prison, it is actually a social desease», explains Marietti «But in women it is certainly greater. The female prisoner suffers more from the stigmatization of prison: she is her mother who has abandoned her children, a bad woman ».
Suicides in prison, the stories of the 5 women who took their own lives
About the suicides. Last year there were 84, one every 4 days: such a high number had never been recorded, neither in absolute nor in relative terms. Among them, 5 were women, 3 of whom were foreigners (both 2020 and 2021 had recorded a single female suicide in prison). Two of them suffered from mental illness, two others had drug addiction problems. Some were very young.
Concetta Manuela Agosta was 29 years old and it was only two days in the prison of Messina. She hanged herself in her cell.
A 36-year-old Romanian woman hanged herself with a pair of elastic trousers to a medlar treeat the end of the hour of fresh air in the Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto prison.
He was 36 years old and problems with drug addiction the Italian woman who took her own life in Rebibbia.
The 51-year-old foreign woman who hanged herself in the Brescia prison had been inside for a few months crimes against property.
Donatella Hodo, 27, also had drug addiction problems and had been back and forth between prison and community since she was very young. She killed herself one night in Verona jail. The Supervisory Magistrate admitted that the system had failed with her and that prison was not the right place to Donatella.
iO Woman © REPRODUCTION RESERVED