The authors present the results of a research conducted by the University of Brescia, which aims to investigate the phenomenon of female imprisonment in Italy, focusing attention on the condition of imprisoned mothers. Verziano in Lombardy, Rebibbia Female in Lazio, Enna, Messina and Syracuse in Sicily, were the Penitentiary Institutes involved. The participant sample was composed of 116 imprisoned mothers to whom were administered a questionnaire, with open and closed questions, divided into six sections all aimed to investigate how women live their deprivation of liberty. With regard to the topic presented here, the questionnaire focuses heavily on the presence of children at the time of the arrest, to their location before and after the arrest in the family or outside the family, how they are preserved contacts, feelings that the mother try to be away from her son, to the problems that may have a child of having the mother in prison.
