One-Month-Old Baby In Prison With Mother In Palermo

Palermo – A one-month-old baby is in Pagliarelli prison, Palermo, forced to live behind bars with his imprisoned mother.

The alarm was raised by Pino Apprendi, guarantor of the city's prisoners, who denounced the absence in Sicily of Icam, the institutes with attenuated custody designed to welcome mothers with small children in a more suitable environment.

“This land is last in this too,” Apprendi said. “The closest facility is in Lauro, in the province of Avellino, and others are in Venice or Turin. It is unacceptable that a newborn should grow up in prison for lack of alternatives.”

The management of Pagliarelli has already reported the case to the competent authorities, but the story sheds light on a structural problem of the Sicilian and national penitentiary system.

Apprendi also drew attention to the tragic situation in Italian prisons, marked by a wave of suicides: the latest, that of a 44-year-old man in Palermo, is the thirty-second case recorded in Italy this year. “The prisoner was being followed by a team and had obtained consent to be transferred to a community, but the waiting times in prison are unsustainable,” the guarantor explained.

“From healthcare to the simplest authorizations, everything is slowed down compared to life outside, worsening the fragility of prisoners.”

The guarantor has appealed to the national and regional governments to invest in alternative structures to prison, such as the Rems for prisoners with mental problems, the Icam for mothers with children and communities for drug addicts. "Enough talk about new prisons, we need human solutions", Apprendi reiterated, also criticizing the delay in the appointment of the regional guarantor by the president of the Sicilian Region, Renato Schifani, vacant for months.

The story of the newborn at Pagliarelli rekindles the debate on prison conditions and the urgency of reforms that protect the rights of prisoners and their families, starting with the most vulnerable.