"With this latest tragic case, we have 77 suicides in Italian prisons since the beginning of the year, the highest number ever (only in 2009 at the end of the year suicides exceeded 70 units, stopping at 72). Suicides constitute 51% of deaths in prison during the year, even this percentage has never been so high since the beginning of the century. Each case is a case, with the story of that person and their anguish, but the general data is impressive and is indicative of a general lack of hope in our prisons". These are the words of the Spokesman of the Conference of Territorial Guarantors of Persons Deprived of Liberty, Stefano Anastasia, after learning of the suicide in prison in Turin of a 56-year-old Italian inmate. "Except for a few admirable experiences of support and accompaniment to social reintegration - continues Anastasia - the vast majority of prisoners experience imprisonment as a more or less long period of abandonment and despair. Paradoxically, the pandemic emergency gave more stimuli to survive, making prisoners feel, albeit locked in prison, part of the external society, also struggling with the prevention and treatment of the virus. But the prison has returned to being a place of isolation and distress, and the number of suicides is a dramatic testimony". "If we do not want to resign ourselves to this tragedy or discharge the responsibility on the prison and health workers in the trenches - concludes Anastasia - we must reduce the prison to an extreme ratio and open it to activities and to the outside world, to restore hope to prisoners in a future worth living".