by
Stefania Tallei

In Italy

Foreigners

Frequently, foreigners live the experience of imprisonment in a much more dramatic way than the Italians. They do not understand the language, the laws, the rules, the code of morals and also in prison they suffer the uprooting and the economic and social disadvantage which has led them to leave their homeland. They frequently await developments in their legal situation without claiming their rights, which they almost never know about. Their cases are often very complex.

For this reason, they sometimes end up staying longer than the others in the section of temporary internment. Extensive detention of the innocent is a frequent occurrence. The wait for a meeting with a lawyer is frequently protracted because of the difficulty of finding an interpreter. They lack the support of family members, friends and at times even diplomatic officers. They have no clothing, do not receive packages, are not visited by anyone. They are the ones who rarely succeed in obtaining alternative kinds of detention because they do not have a family network and/or lodging on the outside.

Some suffer psychiatric diseases, perhaps related also to problems of communication, loneliness, fear, home-sickness. Their family ties are kept alive only by infrequent letters. Many foreigners work within the prisons as cleaning personnel or kitchen help. They seek to use that which they earn there to maintain their families.