Antigone’s First Report tells the story of Italian women’s prisons. An invisible issue that challenges journalism and the principles of the Milan Charter
For those who work in the media, reporting on prisons is a political act and a matter of civic responsibility.
The Milan Charter on prison journalism, approved in 2017 by the Order of Journalists and the National Federation of the Italian Press, in collaboration with the Antigone Association and the Union of Criminal Chambers, reminds us that “the right to report news meets the duty to know and make known the reality of prison, in its entirety, without simplifications and without prejudice”.
Journalists are called upon to overcome the image of imprisonment as punishment and to restore complexity, dignity and truth to the lives of prisoners.
This is the context for the First Report on Women Prisoners in Italy, published by Antigone: a document that, rather than a statistical survey, is an act of transparency and cognitive justice. Because, as the Charter states, “there is no democracy without information capable of crossing the boundaries of prison”.
Women prisoners
Within the Italian prison system, female imprisonment remains an invisible issue both in public debate and in justice policies. Antigone’s report breaks this silence, giving a voice to a prison universe that, although numerically small, is deeply revealing.
The result of extensive observation and monitoring, the report is the first systematic investigation dedicated to women prisoners in our country. Antigone’s Observatory travelled across Italy, from north to south, documenting places of female detention: spaces, relationships, structural deficiencies and the untapped potential of a system still modelled on men (meaning males).
As editor Susanna Marietti points out, female detention is an “anomaly” within the prison system: prisons were created for men, while women were placed there as an exception to the rule. Yet it is precisely from this exception that a different model can emerge: a more humane prison, attentive to the needs and rights of prisoners, capable of building real paths to reintegration.
The report paints a picture of a system that reflects, even behind bars, the inequalities of society outside: poverty, marginalisation, psychological and emotional fragility. But it does so with a proactive approach, putting forward ten concrete recommendations for the protection of prisoners’ rights and the adoption of a gender perspective in prison policies.
The survey covered the four exclusively female prisons in Italy:
Rebibbia “Germana Stefanini” Women’s Prison in Rome
Pozzuoli Women’s Prison (Naples)
Giudecca Women’s Prison in Venice
Trani Women’s Prison (Barletta-Andria-Trani)
In addition to these, there are the ICAM (Istituti a Custodia Attenuata per Madri, or Institutions for the Attenuated Custody of Mothers) and the women’s and minors’ sections distributed throughout the country.
What emerges is the image of a two-speed prison system in Italy: on the one hand, institutions that, despite countless difficulties, are experimenting with models that are more respectful of the dignity of female prisoners; on the other, institutions still marked by overcrowding, a lack of services and a custodial approach geared solely towards men.
Reporting on prisons means choosing which side to be on
Not on the side of crime, nor solely on the side of the law, but on the side of truth and human dignity. This is the profound meaning of the Milan Charter, which calls on journalism to act as a bridge between those who live inside and those who live outside, between the invisible and public opinion.
Antigone’s work does just that: it restores transparency, builds knowledge and breaks the silence. The First Report on Women Prisoners in Italy is not only a map of female detention but an exercise in democracy. In a country still captive to stereotypes and indifference, it reminds us that independent observation and public discourse are instruments of justice just as much as laws.
It is up to journalism — if it wants to remain free — to take up that baton. Because freedom of information is not only measured by the right to publish, but by the ability to look where others look away. The women described by Antigone ask for this first and foremost: to be seen, named, recognised. And every article that does so, in accordance with the Milan Charter, restores the full meaning of the word “justice”.
