Suicide rate growing in Italy jails: Report

The number of suicides in Italian prisons has risen since the beginning of this year as the country’s jails are struggling with overcrowding and underfunding, Press TV quotes a medical society and a rights group as saying.

The Italian Society of Psychiatrists as well as the prisoners’ rights group Ristretti Orizzonti warned on Friday that the number of suicides in Italian prisons has peaked in the first months of 2014, with 40 percent of all jailhouse deaths being reported as suicide.

According to the groups, 11 inmates have taken their own lives since February this year.

The highest number of suicides in Italian prisons was recorded in 2009 with 72, in 2013 self-inflicted deaths stood at 49 percent.

Italy has also often been reprimanded by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) over the amount of time it takes Italian courts to reach verdicts.

“The excessive or unnecessary use of lengthy pre-trial detentions greatly contributes to the phenomenon of prison overcrowding. Unfortunately, our penal system does not focus on inmates’ rehabilitation,” Roberto Di Giovanpaolo, from the National Forum for Prison Healthcare, told Press TV.

Di Giovanpaolo said there are about 68,000 inmates in Italy’s prisons, most of them in jail for minor crimes. He added that the country’s prisons are more than 15 percent over capacity.

According to reports, 30 percent of the inmates in Italian prisons are immigrants who had entered the country without a visa. Since January being an illegal immigrant is no longer a criminal offence in Italy. The country’s jails, however, remain full of people who flee their own land to avoid wars and persecution.

In May last year, the ECHR set Rome a one-year deadline to find a solution to chronic overcrowding in Italy’s jails, which is seen as the main factor in high suicide rates.