Incarceration Trends in Italy Between Rising ‘Punitiveness’ and ‘Penal Moderation’

Abstract

AbstractThe article analyses Italian incarceration trends and the impact of prison population increases on the criminal punishment system as a whole. “Correlating prison and community justice trends: an outline of net-widening” presents the interpretative framework and illustrates four events in recent Italian history that can be considered ‘breaking points’ if compared to the ordinary prison expansionism observed since the 1990s. Moreover, in comparing prison population and alternatives to imprisonment trends, it describes how the considerable expansion of community justice measures in the last ten years can contribute to shaping a net-widening scenario. “Imprisonment trends in Italy: restraint after the boom?” analyses the specificities of the Italian prison system compared to those of other European countries: overcrowding, pre-trial detention rates, migrants’ penal control, and short-term sentences. In the conclusions, we consider the extent to which the recent evolution of prison trends and some Italian specificities can be read in terms of increasing ‘punitiveness’ or, conversely, ‘penal moderation’.