Overview
- Senate President Ignazio La Russa renewed an appeal for a narrow clemency measure before Christmas to let prisoners near sentence completion finish outside, excluding crimes against law enforcement.
- Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano rejected immediate clemency and cited a plan to close the gap of roughly 53,000 places versus nearly 64,000 inmates within two years, with a task force identifying about 10,000 candidates for alternatives.
- Parliamentary sources say there is no draft text for the proposed decree, and government sources indicate the measure will not proceed despite La Russa’s push.
- Divisions persist inside the majority, with Forza Italia expressing openness as the League and leading figures in Fratelli d’Italia resist, while the ANM urges consideration and opposition leaders criticize government inaction.
- The debate was amplified by a book event where detained authors Gianni Alemanno and Fabio Falbo, denied in-person or remote permission, had their words read by AI avatars, and Roberto Giachetti accused La Russa of giving false hope to inmates.