Cruel and Usual Punishment (original) (raw)

London Review of Books, 2023

Abstract

According to the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, also known as the ‘Nelson Mandela Rules’, to keep a prisoner in solitary confinement for 22 hours a day for more than 15 days is a form of torture, acceptable ‘in no circumstances’. Yet it is normal procedure in Italy’s 41-bis regime, named after an amendment to the Prison Administration Act introduced as ‘emergency’ legislation in 1975 but modified several times since, including after the mafia killing of the Sicilian judge Giovanni Falcone and his five bodyguards near Palermo in 1992. Its purpose then was to prevent mafia bosses from communicating with their associates but, as often happens with repressive measures, it has been progressively extended to other prisoners.

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