ROME, June 27 (UPI) -- Italian prisoners will be transferred to house arrest and treatment centers to reduce overcrowding, Justice Minister Anna Cancellieri said Thursday.
The minister said the move, authorized by the Italian Parliament, will cut the prison population by about 6,000, The Local.it reported. She told the newspaper La Stampa no one will simply be released.
Cancellieri said the government is considering alternatives to imprisonment for minor offenders and reducing the number of people held for pre-trial detention.
Fears "mobsters would be free to walk the streets," are groundless, Cancellieri said.
"It is not a measure of 'empty jails' in the classic sense," she said. "It is not for the benefit of those who have committed serious crimes."
Italy is now holding about 66,000 people in prisons designed to hold 45,000. The European Court of Human Rights has ordered the country to end overcrowding by May 2014.
