“The prison issue is a chronic emergency that recurs cyclically in the same terms. The same overcrowding, the same degradation, the same disconcerting staff shortages. Time passes but prison remains uncivilized and degrading. How can this be explained? The answer lies in the statistics on the social composition of the prison population: the percentage of white collar workersin prison is so negligible that in some years it is not even quoted”. The senator of the 5 Star Movement said this in the Chamber of Palazzo Madama Roberto Scarpinato in the declaration of vote on the Prisons decree. “In 2013 – he added – those sentenced to prison for economic and fiscal crimes in Italy constituted only 0.4%compared to a European average of 4.1%. These data attest to the class-based nature of the Italian penitentiary system. Upon leaving the Palermo prison, a prisoner released following the 2006 pardon declared: ‘We are grateful to the great state thieves because thanks to them even small-time street thieves like me have been given the opportunity to avoid prison.’ The majority and the government are constantly committed to taking the classist nature of the penal system to its extreme consequences”. “On the one hand – observed Scarpinato – the penalties for white-collar crimes are abolished and reduced, on the other hand new types of crime are introduced, Penalties for crimes committed by ordinary people are increased. Even with the security bill, an intimidating message is sent to prisoners who dare to protest peacefully against the degrading and inhuman conditions in which they live”. “Order and discipline – he concluded – only for the last and the penultimate, freedom to enrich oneself at the expense of the community and of abuse their power for the upper classes. The prison planet is a volcano destined to explode sooner or later and when this happens, the Government will be the only one responsible for what happens, demonstrating once again its inadequacy in managing the complexity of reality”
