Foreigners and prisons

Abstract

The issue of foreign national prisoners needs to be considered in a national and supranational perspective because of its importance, related to different topics connected to the respect of the rights of the foreign inmate. Among these, we have to keep in special consideration the exposure to discrimination, the lack of access to justice (due inter alia to the language barrier), the relational isolation, the difficult reintegration and the impact of the status of illegal immigrant.
Facing such a view, it’s easy to understand the central importance of all the international instruments for the protection of foreign prisoners, especially of the European framework decisions, unfortunately non totally applied in each Member State. Their particular importance is due to the fact that, if correctly implemented, they can have a strong impact on different phenomena, such as the diminution of the foreign prisoners and their effective reintegration, thanks to the mutual recognition to criminal decision and the possibility to transfer persons deprived of liberty. However, different kind of reasons may hinder the fully application of these framework decisions. So, from one hand, their implementation needs efforts from each Member State, from the other one, the national governments should consider the possibility to identify privileged interlocutors for the approval of convention that can allow the transfer of stakeholders.