La Stampa prison opens a new women's wing

The new women's section at La Stampa cantonal prison is operational immediately. It was presented on Monday by the Department of Institutions.

The new wing has eleven places. One cell is designed to house a mother with a child up to three years old. There are also areas for exercise and daily activities, as well as a workshop for work. The section was created by converting an existing wing of the prison.

Until now, transfers out of canton

In recent years the number of women in detention has risen across Switzerland. In Ticino this adds to broader pressure on prison facilities, with periods of overcrowding that have particularly affected the Farera remand prison.

Until now, female inmates were held at the Farera or, for longer sentences, transferred to facilities outside the canton. That arrangement carried a significant financial cost for the canton and limited women's access to work and training during detention. It also meant moving detainees away from their family and social ties, at a stage in their lives when keeping those ties can affect reintegration after release.

The new section aims to overcome these limits, offering more suitable conditions for serving a sentence in Ticino. The project is part of a wider plan to upgrade cantonal prison facilities, for which the Grand Council approved a credit of around 3 million francs in 2023. The same works also renovated areas for elderly inmates and people with physical or motor disabilities.

In designing the section, the canton took into account the specificities of female detention and the United Nations' Bangkok Rules, which call for particular attention to the needs of women deprived of their liberty. It remains to be seen whether the eleven available places will be enough to absorb the rise in the female prison population recorded in recent years, or whether the canton will again need to resort to transfers out of canton.