Assessing the ethics of prison policies to ensure human rights compliance: Suicides and self-inflicted critical events in Italian prisons

Considering self-inflicted critical events (suicides, attempted suicides, self-harm acts, hunger strikes) in Italian prisons as indicators of the respect of inmates’ human rights, this study examines their relationship with the characteristics of the Italian prison system between 2016 and 2021, using a unique prison-level dataset covering the 188 national prisons. Both individual panel regressions and seemingly unrelated regressions show that reducing prison overcrowding reduces critical events. The same result is achieved by increasing mandatory treatments (restraint acts) performed discretionally by prison staff. Because the former policy is politically sensitive and difficult/costly to implement, policymakers may prefer to rely on the latter as a “death-avoidance strategy”, despite the greater likelihood of violating inmates’ human rights. These findings may help explain the increasing use of acts of restraint in Italian prisons in recent times.