Gli attori del monitoraggio delle prigioni: tra indipendenza, formalità e rappresentazioni della pena

Abstract

With increasing incarceration rates at the age of mass imprisonment, growing attention has been given to the protection of the imprisoned persons’ rights globally, both from a regulatory point of view and for an increasing involvement of international courts in this context. In this respect, several monitoring activities of prison conditions are gradually consolidating. From an institutional point of view, the adoption of the Optional Protocol to the ONU Convention against torture (OPCAT) in 2002 imposes that each State have a National Preventive Mechanisms (NPM). In Italy, this role is performed by the National Guarantor who is the lead institutional actor of prison monitoring, alongside the Supervisory Judiciary (Magistratura di Sorveglianza) which specific mandate is to ensure the law enforcement inside prisons. In addition to these institutional roles, non-istitutional actors exist who monitor and describe structural conditions and prison climate related to rights violation in prison. This article aims to examine rules and practices of monitoring activities to reflect on the way by which different levels of independence, formality and social representations of punishment and prison could produce different effects in terms of safeguarding of prisoners’ rights, with special emphasis on prison violence representations and on tools to prevent and fight against it.

Keywords

• prisons
• violence
• rights
• national preventive mechanisms
• supervisory judiciary
• non institutional monitoring actors