Italy prison overcrowding emergency

from the article in Corrections Reporter:

The Italian government on Wednesday declared a state of emergency in the country’s prisons and launched a four-point plan to tackle the overcrowding, ANSA news agency reported.

Talking at a press conference attended as well by Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, the Justice Minister Angelino Alfano said “the plan is without precedent in the history of this Republic.”

“We’re going to eliminate prison overcrowding once and for all without resorting to another round of amnesties,” he added, which would empty prisons by pouring criminals in the society.

Jan 26, 2010 Policy, Politics

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Cutting crime: The case for justice reinvestment

The British House of Common Justice Committee has recently released a report on the reinvestment of justice resources aimed at reducing crime. The following is excerpted from the Executive Summary:

We decided to undertake an inquiry into “justice reinvestment”, because of three linked issues. 

First, the criminal justice system is a complex network of agencies with substantial public funding operating under increasing pressure but the different parts of the system do not seem to be pursuing the same goals or making cogent contributions to an agreed overarching purpose. 

Secondly, the Government’s main answer to the current overcrowding of prisons and the predicted rise in the prison population—already at a record high—is to provide more prison places rather than to seek to address the root causes of this seemingly incessant growth. These causes include: a toxic cocktail of sensationalised or inaccurate reporting of difficult cases by the media; relatively punitive overall public opinion (compared to much of the EU); a self-defeating over-politicisation of criminal justice policy since the late 1980s and the responsiveness to all these factors of the sentencing framework and sentencers. 

Thirdly, it is clear that authorities and agencies outside the criminal justice system—with relevant objectives, remits and funding—could take more effective action to reduce both the number of people entering the criminal justice system in the first place and the likelihood of re-entry after serving a sentence. 

So questions arise as to whether the existing allocation of attention, energy and funding is the right one. “Justice reinvestment” approaches—which channel resources on a geographically-targeted basis to reduce the crimes which bring people into the criminal justice system and into prison in particular—offer potential solutions to these challenges.

Jan 22, 2010 Country:England&Wales, RJ City, Support, Region: Europe, Policy, Politics

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U.S. Sentencing Commission and restorative justice

Jan 13, 2010 Region: North America and Caribbean, Correspondent:Lisa Rea, Victim, Policy, Politics, Country:USA

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