Article 41-bis prison regime

In Italian law, Article 41-bis of the Prison Administration Act, also known as carcere duro ("hard prison regime"), is a provision that allows the Minister of Justice or the Minister of the Interior to suspend certain prison regulations and impose practically a complete isolation upon a prisoner. It is used against people imprisoned for particular crimes, such as Mafia-type association under 416-bis (Associazione di tipo mafioso), drug trafficking, homicide, aggravated robbery and extortion, kidnapping, terrorism, and attempting to subvert the constitutional system. It is suspended only when a prisoner co-operates with the authorities, when a court annuls it, or when a prisoner dies.

The Surveillance Court of Rome is the court competent on nationwide level on appeals against the 41-bis decree. The European Court of Human Rights found in 2007 that the regime breached two articles of the European Convention on Human Rights. Earlier in 2002, 300 Mafia prisoners declared a hunger strike. In 2022, Alfredo Cospito, an Italian anarchist, began a hunger strike, which generated mainstream media attention on the 41-bis.