Deep dives · Pre-trial detention
Before the verdict
Under the Italian Constitution, someone awaiting a final judgment is not considered guilty. How many people are in prison in that position, where, and how much the State pays when custody turns out to be unjust.
People in prison without a final conviction
Year by year
Without a final conviction, and awaiting first trial
How many people, in total and without a final conviction
Who is waiting
Italians and foreign nationals
Without a final conviction, per 100 people in prison in each group
Women and men
Without a final conviction, per 100 people in prison in each group
Where people awaiting trial make up the largest share
Without a final conviction, per 100 people in prison
How much the type of prison matters is tested, region by region, in Prison by prison.
What judges order before the verdict
Measures ordered each year
Which measures
How the proceedings end
When custody turns out to be unjust, and how much the State pays
Anyone held in pre-trial custody and then acquitted, or whose case was dropped, or who was detained under an unlawful order, can ask the court of appeal for fair compensation: up to €516,456.90, paid by the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
How much is paid
Requests and payments
District by district
What we don’t know
How long pre-trial custody lasts, and how many people it involves rather than how many measures: there are no public statistics. How many people held in custody are acquitted at the end of a long trial: the report follows only proceedings closed within the year. How many would be entitled to compensation and do not ask for it.
How the numbers were built, and sources
Why this page
The rest of the atlas counts reported crimes; this page looks at what happens next. The approach is that of The Marshall Project, the American newsroom that covers criminal justice: official data read to the end, the method next to the numbers, and words that do not reduce people to their trial.
Without a final conviction
These are the people held in adult prisons on 31 December (ISTAT, from data of the Department of Prison Administration) who are awaiting first trial, appealing, awaiting the Court of Cassation, or in mixed positions with no final conviction: the total the prison administration calls “imputati”, the same used in the deep dive on prisons. People with at least one final conviction and other proceedings open count as convicted.
A snapshot at the end of the year
The numbers count who is in prison on 31 December, not how many people went through pre-trial custody during the year, nor for how long. The region is where the prison is. People under house arrest and minors are not included.
Precautionary measures
They come from the report the Government presents to Parliament every year (Law 47 of 2015, Article 15), which since 2017 has also covered compensation. In 2024, 84% of offices responded and the Ministry estimated the rest; 2018 and 2019 also contain estimates. The report counts measures, not people.
Why 2025 is missing
The report of 30 December 2025 (Doc. XCIV no. 4) covers January to October 2025, with 57% of offices responding and no estimates, and itself warns against comparing those numbers with earlier years. So measures and outcomes stop at 2024; from that report we use only the disciplinary proceedings, updated to November 2025, and the requests for compensation. Payments for 2025 were not yet available.
Compensation
Orders and amounts are those received by the Ministry of Economy during the year, by court of appeal, and can concern custody from many years earlier. The detached sections of Sassari, Taranto and Bolzano are counted separately. Residents are the provinces of each district on 1 January 2025, with approximate boundaries where a court has municipalities in two provinces: Massa-Carrara is with Genoa; the province of Nuoro is counted entirely with Sassari, though on the map Ogliastra (the Lanusei court) is with Cagliari.
How the data were built
The report’s tables are published only as PDFs: they were transcribed one by one, with the page they come from, into scripts/cautelari_relazione.json. The script checks that measures by type add up to the total, that the districts add up to the national totals, and that amounts divided by orders match the averages published by the Ministry. All the numbers on this page are in data/cautelari.json.
Sources
The reports (in Italian): 2024 data, January 2025 edition (Ministry of Justice) and year 2025, Doc. XCIV no. 4 (Chamber of Deputies). For the method of the whole atlas: Methodology and sources.
More deep dives
Foreign nationals in Italian prisons
How many there are, from which countries, for which crimes, and why the comparison with residents should be read with caution.
Read the deep dive ReturnsHow many returns are ordered, and how many carried out
Country by country, the orders to leave Italy and the returns actually carried out, year by year since 2008.
Read the deep dive Perception and realityHow unsafe we feel, and how unsafe we are
Fear of crime alongside reported crimes: in Italy as a whole, in the big cities and province by province.
Read the deep dive Unknown offendersHow many crimes remain without a known offender
How many reported crimes have a known offender: crime by crime, in the big cities and province by province.
Read the deep dive MinorsMinors reported and arrested
How many there are among the people reported, for which crimes and region by region: the numbers since 2004, their share since 2014.
Read the deep dive Prison by prisonHow full prisons are, and how many people die in them
Prison by prison, the people held and the places available month by month since 2019, and deaths in prison according to who counts them.
Read the deep dive TrialsFrom crime to verdict
How many cases prosecutors open, how long trials and appeals last, how many end because time runs out: district by district and court by court.
Read the deep dive Outside prisonSentences served outside prison
Probation, home detention, semi-liberty and probation before trial: how many people, how it has changed since 2014, region by region.
Read the deep dive