Abolish Migrant Detention Centers
Freedom of movement is the only option.
by Marco Biondi
Oftentimes, when public discourse focuses on the Permanence and Repatriation Centers (CPRs) built by Italy in Albania —in addition to the 11 already present throughout the country —, attention focuses almost exclusively on the enormous costs to public finances and the ineffectiveness of the initiative promoted by Giorgia Meloni. However, this takes the focus away from the main issue:
CPRs are cages in which innocent people are locked up and deprived of their freedom of movement.
Since 1995, when administrative detention was introduced through a decree-law, migration has been treated according to an emergency logic, with measures that have linked the issue of migration to that of security, thus highlighting the underlying institutional racism.
CPRs are structures aimed at repatriation, born as a state of exception with the Turco-Napolitano law in 1998.
Administrative detention is a form of deprivation of personal freedom of movement involving only migrant persons.
It does not affect the person who has committed a crime, but rather the administrative irregularity concerning entry into and stay in the territory of a State.
Chi si trova in prigione nei CPR? Who is in prison in the CPRs?
“Young people who have just come of age and arrived in Italy who, instead of being welcomed, find themselves in prison; people who have lived in our country for decades; workers who lose their jobs, often strenuous or exploitative, or their residence, and end up without a residence permit; people who are detained while waiting for the documents they have applied for.”.
Speaking is Marco Grimaldi, a member of parliament for AVS, who has visited the Turin CPR several times over the years. “Administrative detention is senseless and illogical. But there is worse, because that detention almost always results in suffering and uncertainty, a lack of activities, and inadequate health and psychological support, as well as acts of self-harm and suicide attempts.” And that’s not all: “solitary confinement, forced and prolonged sedation, beatings, and injuries inflicted by law enforcement officers were reported by CPR inmates in Milo (Trapani) and Macomer (Nuoro)”, he adds.
The CPR’s business: privatization and political responsibility
In 2023, the Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights (CILD) – a network of organizations that protects and promotes civil liberties guaranteed by the Italian Constitution and international law, fighting against abuses and violations – published the report “The CPR Affair. Profit at the expense of migrants”, within which great attention was paid to the multinationals Gepsa and ORS, the company Engel srl and the Edeco-Ekene and Badia Grande Cooperatives, the private entities entrusted with the management of the centers in the three-year period 2021-2023, for a total value of 56 million euros.
The report shows in detail how the denial of fundamental rights, starting with freedom of movement, is structural to the system of administrative detention and is also achieved through its progressive privatization.
Entrusting all personal services to private entities introduces profit-maximizing approaches by multinationals and cooperatives, while at the same time encouraging the public authorities to shed their responsibilities.
The Council of State's ruling rejecting the CPR procurement specifications for inadequate health protection for detained migrants, reported by Melting Pot, certifies, according to Grimaldi, the rights violations denounced by numerous voices. “The terrible story of Moussa Balde is an example of this: a fragile person, victim of violence, locked up in a CPR rather than in care and assistance facilities, left in an isolation cell where he ended his life. It is clear that the Government has taken no measures to address these problems; in fact, the actions carried out so far have only worsened them, just as is happening in the Italian prison system”.
Health, vulnerability and structural violations of human rights
Valentina Muglia, a jurist and administrative detention expert for CILD, documented the very serious conditions of the right to health within the CPRs, citing the case of "C," a person with serious psychiatric vulnerabilities, detained for over nine months in solitary confinement in the CPR of Ponte Galeria in Rome, despite the obvious incompatibilities for life in a small community. The Police Headquarters continued to request extensions of his detention validated by the justice of the peace.
The release of “C” took place in July 2024 thanks to an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights which CILD, together with 8 other international law firms, promoted part of the Rule 39 Pro Bono Initiative, an initiative designed to urgently help vulnerable migrant people who are subject, among many violations, to pushbacks and expulsions in countries where their human rights are at risk or in ill-equipped refugee camps. According to Article 39 of the European Court of Human Rights, in fact, the Court can apply provisional measures against the Member States of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in cases of “imminent risk of irreparable damage”, i.e. threats to life (Art.2) or ill-treatment prohibited by Art.3 of the Convention (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment).
“Following his release and admission to a public facility where his mental health was taken care of, it was discovered that “C” had Romanian citizenship”, Muglia explains, expressing doubts about the ways in which medical staff hastily conduct interviews intended to determine eligibility for detention in CPRs. “There is inadequate training of medical and healthcare personnel, as well as strong pressure to sign documents when the police bring individuals into the facilities,” she adds.
During one of the monitoring sessions at the CPR in Ponte Galeria, Muglia also met a North African citizen with serious motor difficulties: he had been placed in a simple office chair and his cellmates even helped him go to the bathroom. “He had crutches at the time of his arrest, but they are prohibited in the center for safety reasons. A ban that should have prevented his entry, given his obvious unsuitability”, explains Muglia.
“During monitoring in the CPRs we met people who commit serious acts of self-harm, often to report conditions of detention, but who are ignored or reduced to simple demonstrative acts”, explains Muglia. He also cites the massive administration of psychotropic drugs to sedate inmates: “Doctors report that it is often the inmates themselves who request anxiolytics in order to be able to sleep in such inhumane conditions.” An Altreconomia investigation also documented the arbitrary and excessive use of medicines within CPRs.
In November 2024, following the death of Ousmane Sylla, who died at just 20 years old in the Rome CPR, CILD published the Report “Locked in a Cage: Journey into the inferno of the CPR of Ponte Galeria”, asking the Municipality to take care of those who have escaped, such as women who are at risk of being trafficked again. “We have asked all the bodies working within the CPR (police stations, prefectures, local health authorities), and which must be held accountable for the aberrant prison conditions in which detained people find themselves, to carry out the work of a commission of inquiry”, says Muglia. In July 2025, a popular action was launched to close the administrative detention facility in Rome.
Baobab Experience, the association of volunteers and activists in Rome that offers support to people on the move, is fighting for the closure of CPRs. “Not because of the terrible sanitation conditions, not because of overcrowding, not because of torture practices, not because of the forced administration of psychotropic drugs, not because of the terrible quality of the food, not because people with psychophysical conditions incompatible with detention are being held, not because they represent a business for private managers,
but because they are cages where women and men who have not committed any crime are locked up.
Cages where innocent people are deprived of their freedom of movement. Even if CPRs were 5-star hotels, they would still have to be dismantled: they represent a human and legal abomination, designed to punish those who dared to migrate”.
Muglia also highlighted the very serious situation of unaccompanied minors: once they come of age, many of them are stopped and transferred to CPRs, especially if they lack valid documents. “These guys shouldn't be in there. In fact, no one should be locked up in CPRs, because no one is illegal. But even less so a boy of 18 years and six months, who crossed the sea alone when he was still a minor and who has no one to turn to”.
Perché i CPR devono essere aboliti: le alternative Why CPRs must be abolished: the alternatives
“CPRs must be closed because people should be free to move, and have decent legal assistance that is lacking”,
Muglia argues, reiterating CILD's abolitionist position, and arguing that alternatives exist and are called "regularization for all" and "legal entry channels."
Grimaldi also argues that CPRs should be abolished: “Europe's approach to migration policies should radically change, but today we are actually seeing a return to internal border controls within the EU. Instead, fortress Europe must be torn down, agreements with third countries for border control and pushbacks must be broken. Access to international protection for those fleeing violence or persecution must be facilitated, and investment is needed for inclusion and integration policies and an EU visa system for human rights and environmental defenders. To address migration flows caused by conflict, the Temporary Protection Directive must be implemented and the recognition of climate refugee status introduced. And we should review Frontex's mandate to instead create an EU mission for sea rescues. In short, everything must change based on the principle that every person has the right to try to improve their life even by moving away”.
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