Update: European Action Day against prison overcrowding, 28 February 2008
EPSU Italian affiliate FP-CGIL joins the European Action day on 28 February 2008 to protest at prison overcrowding and desastrous effects on working and living conditions. This is the 10th country taking part in the Day.
From fortress to prison: 25% more prisoners in Europe
Davide Madeddu
(24 October 2007)From Italy to Belgium, in France and Britain, there are too many prisoners behind bars. The
statistics, collected by the trade union organizations representing prison officers in a number
of European countries, show a growth of almost 25% in the prison population in Europe. The
majority of prisons in the EU face serious overcrowding, with an average of over 25% more
detainees than they were designed for, states the report from EPSU, the international prison
workers’ union to which the Italian union CGIL is affiliated. This situation has wide-ranging
effects on the health and safety of staff and detainees, as well as on the operating and
security systems of the prisons themselves.
According to the international union, which has organized a demonstration on the day of the meeting of the Council of Ministers for Internal Affairs and Justice, 28th of February 2008, «the issue of overcrowding affects the fundamental human right to work in secure conditions of a large proportion of the 300,000 prison workers. This conflicts with the prison regulations of the Council of Europe, which recognize detainees’ right to human dignity and privacy. The chronic reduction in staff in many prisons is another related issue also affecting crime prevention, in that it makes it impossible to provide adequate supervision and rehabilitation for prisoners».
Another problem related to overcrowding is that of funding, and the provision of sufficient
resources to keep the whole system working. According to EPSU, «the allocation of
insufficient funds to the penal and social justice systems, and the growing prison population
in the European Union (now over 600,000) are the main causes of overcrowding». The union
goes on to state that «the solution does not lie in the building of more prisons or to resort to
the private sector. Our objective is to improve the functioning of prisons and living conditions
within them and to reduce the number of prisoners by investing in preventative measures, in
support from the legal system, in rehabilitation and alternatives to detention».
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