Cabinet has nominated MP Franco
Corleone as sole commissioner in charge of closing Italy's
remaining facilities for the criminally insane, Health
Undersecretary Vito De Filippo said Friday.
The facilities were first set up in the mid-1970s and
subsequently found unfit to house the prisoners, who were held
in conditions of extreme neglect.
A 2012 law abolished these facilities and replaced them
with new, health-ministry approved secure psychiatric hospitals.
Corleone, a former ombudsman for the rights of prisoners in
Tuscany, is charged with shutting down facilities in Abruzzo,
Calabria, Piedmont, Puglia and Tuscany within six months.
"I intend to get it done as soon as possible," the former
Senator, MEP, justice undersecretary and prison reformer told
ANSA.
Corleone, who has been affiliated with the Radical Party
and the Green Party, has advocated for extensive prison reform,
especially on the detention of people with AIDS, mothers, and
underage offenders.
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