In Italy there are 144,822 convicts who are out of prison, serving alternative sentences or in the community. Of these ghosts, 30,279 are immigrants. The news is full of their crimes, but sending them to prison seems like an almost impossible task
I’m not in prison and I’m not even out of the prison system. I’m in the middle. In a little-told but very large area of the criminal radar. Since Martha Cartabia has put its hand to alternative measures to detention, to alternative sanctions, to security measures and to community measures, the punishment has changed direction. It has moved around the territory, in the cities, it has blended into daily life, it has become a silent presence that accompanies those who have received it as they walk down the street, take a bus, enter a public office and return home in the evening. Or as he returns to committing crimes.
The camouflaged ones have a bureaucratic name: they are called “adults in the external penal area”. In all, as of January 15, 2026, according to the statistical analysis developed by the Department of Juvenile and Community Justice, there are 144,822. And 30,279 are foreigners. Over one in five. They are in charge of the external criminal enforcement offices. Mainly men: 26,381, concentrated in the central age groups, between 30 and 59 years. But there is no shortage of very young people. Anyone who ends up in this statistic doesn’t get there by chance. The document explains this precisely when it lists the tasks of the offices, which include the investigation of the individual and socio-family situation of those who request access to alternative measures, but above all the execution of alternative measures to detention and community sanctions and measures. The document also lists where these foreigners come from: 4,571 from Morocco, 4,147 from Albania, 1,824 from Tunisia, 1,464 from Nigeria. Followed by Senegal, Egypt, Peru, China and Pakistan. There are also Europeans: 3,890 come from Romania, 695 from Ukraine, 558 from Germany, 344 from Switzerland, 254 from Poland, 241 from Russia.
They are entrusted to social services, on semi-freedom or on probation, and carry out public utility work (for violation of the drug law or the highway code). In some cases they are entrusted to a Rems, the Residences for the implementation of the security measures established in 2014 to accommodate people suffering from mental disorders who commit crimes. It’s in a Rems, for example, Mohamed Amine Elouardaoui20 years old, Moroccan with a regular residence permit but with mental disorders, who beat and disfigured ten women in Prato because he hated Italian women.
The tables are precise about who enters the system, how many are in charge, what measures are applied, and the incoming flows. But there is a hole that weighs heavily: there is not a line on revocation measures. No data on how many measures are interrupted. No indication of who violates the regulations, who fails the course, who goes back behind bars. An absence that is not neutral. Because it should contain the most alarming cases. In Naples, for example, last January 12, a forty-six year old on semi-freedom mugged an old woman who hit her head when she fell. After a few hours he was arrested for aggravated robbery. Last September 26, in Bologna, a thirty-six-year-old on semi-liberty was stopped by the police after beating a woman he had tried to rape. In November, however, in Lanciano, two Roma belonging to rival families faced each other in the street. Both were in semi-freedom. In Agrigento, last June, taking advantage of semi-freedom, a forty-one year old kicked his wife. But when the supervising magistrate revoked his benefit, ordering him to return to his cell, he was already a bird of the woods (he was only tracked down after a few days). In April, once again in Naples, a thirty-three-year-old on semi-liberty wounded two people with gunshots on the seafront over an argument over a free ride that his children were supposed to take on a carousel. In Castorano, in the province of Ascoli Piceno, on January 26, a thirty-three-year-old entrusted to social services was caught by the police for dealing drugs. Only a few days ago in Sicily, in Scoglitti (Ragusa), the police arrested a forty-year-old from Vittoria entrusted to social services after a 4-year sentence for multiple manslaughter for causing a road accident. He had been admitted to the alternative measure but had repeatedly violated its provisions by committing offences, coincidentally, while driving a car. While in Pontelagoscuro di Ferrara, a fifty-year-old was arrested two weeks ago for stealing fuel from a haulier. He was on probation with social services as an alternative to prison, a measure that had been ordered by the Supervisory Magistrate of Bologna. There are hundreds of cases.
And you just need to do a little Google search to find out how many other semi-prisoners have turned into aspiring Scarlet Pimpernels trying to disappear from the radar of justice. As if that wasn’t enough, however, a sentence has arrived from the Court of Cassation, number 15896 of 2024, which extends its hand to those who have made mistakes and continue to make mistakes. Here is the maxim: «For the revocation of semi-liberty, an overall evaluation of the re-educational path of the convicted person is necessary, as it cannot be based exclusively on a single deviant behavior, especially if this does not interrupt a long and positive path of social reintegration». It is not certain, therefore, that after a further crime one will return to prison. And, thus, the external penal area merges with daily life, transforming punishment into a widespread presence, often difficult to control and almost never talked about.
