A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #13-26 - CPRs: Repression and Control. Close All the Camps (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Much has already been written about CPRs. It has been said that they are 
inhumane, violent, and unacceptable. All true. But that's not enough. 
The problem is no longer proving what happens inside CPRs, but 
understanding why they exist. ---- Today, 10 repatriation detention 
centers are active in Italy, distributed throughout the country: Turin, 
Milan, Gradisca d'Isonzo, Macomer, Palazzo San Gervasio, Rome, Bari, 
Brindisi, Caltanissetta, and Trapani. Almost all are located in isolated 
areas, out of sight and difficult to access. The overall capacity is 
limited and, in many cases, lower than declared: a significant portion 
of places remain unused even when formally available.
CPRs hold people who have not committed crimes but are in an 
administratively irregular situation. Detention can last up to 18 
months. But the crucial statistic is another: in 2024, only 41.8% of 
detained people were actually repatriated. For the majority, detention 
doesn't even serve its stated purpose.
Yet the system isn't being scaled back. It's being strengthened: closed 
centers are reopened after riots and fires, new facilities are being 
designed, and public resources continue to be invested in an ineffective 
system. This means one simple thing: CPRs aren't there to function. They 
exist for something else. They aren't for repatriation, they're for 
discipline.

Administrative detention transforms a bureaucratic condition into guilt 
and creates a clear boundary between those who have rights and those who 
can be deprived of them. Inside CPRs, time isn't just long: it's empty. 
People often don't receive adequate information about their rights, have 
limited access to legal and healthcare assistance, and live in 
isolation. The effects are evident: acts of self-harm, suicide attempts, 
fires, protests. These aren't exceptions, but the norm. In this sense, 
the CPRs are not an anomaly, but part of a broader picture. In recent 
years, a model based on repression and control has strengthened: 
criminalization of dissent, restrictions on freedom of demonstration, 
increased administrative measures with fewer guarantees, attacks on 
solidarity. The CPRs are precisely within this transformation.
They are places where what we then tend to generalize is experienced: 
detention without crime, institutional opacity, reduction of rights, 
privatized management of people's lives. This is not a malfunction, it 
is a model. What is being applied to migrants today represents a 
political laboratory, a preview.
This is why simply denouncing the violence of the CPRs is not enough. 
The problem is not only what happens inside those centers, but the fact 
that they exist and are considered normal. The "security" that justifies 
them is not a response to social problems, but a device that produces 
control.

Closing the CPRs is necessary, but it is not enough if we do not 
question the logic that created them. Because we're not dealing with a 
mistake that needs fixing, but with a system that works exactly as it 
should.

Totò Caggese

https://umanitanova.org/cpr-repressione-e-controllo-chiudere-tutti-i-lager/
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