The Polizia Penitenziaria** (in English, "Penitentiary Police"), formally the Corpo di Polizia Penitenziaria**, is a law enforcement agency in Italy which is subordinate to the Italian Ministry of Justice and operates the Italian prison system as corrections officers. Vatican City, an independent state, does not have a prison system, so the Vatican sends convicted criminals to the Italian prison system. According to Interpol, this force (as part of the Ministry of Justice) has a "nationwide remit for prison security, inmate safety and transportation".

History

The Polizia Penitenziaria was formed in 1990 to replace the former Corpo degli Agenti di Custodia. Professionalization and demilitarization were motives for creating the new organisation.

Operations

The Polizia Penitenziaria carries out the functions of the Judicial Police, Public Safety, Traffic Police and Corrections. They support other law enforcement agencies, such as with traffic roadblocks (known as a controllo). The Polizia Penitenziaria is one of the four national police forces of Italy (along with the Carabinieri, the Polizia di Stato and the Guardia di Finanza), with each force performing a slightly different function. Their number is 112.

Weapons

The Polizia Penitenziaria are an armed police force, like most Italian police forces and it uses a variety of firearms and weapons for self-defence:

Uniform

As a national, civilian police force, the uniform and insignia is similar to other Italian police forces, with historical, service and seasonal variations, as well as rank Principally, there are: Uniforms are then further split along the lines of: The type of uniform worn depends also on the duty being carried out. E.g. office work, or prison landing work, or armed exterior patrols, or riots, all require different uniform and equipment.

Recruiting

The Polizia Penitenziaria recruits its members through an open, public and competitive exam which is announced by the Ministry of Justice. A quote of the available working posts can be reserved by law to the promotion of internal workers or people who have contracted a permanent and irreversible infirmity in the fulfillment of their duty. An analogue right could be reserved to their more proximate relatives. Until the approval of the ordinary law n. 225 23 August 2004, the selection was open to any Italian civil citizen who had the requisites for absolving the military service. Those people had the right to absolve it directly within the Polizia Penitenziaria, after having passed the public exam for the qualification as an auxiliary agent. The selection was reserved to the Italian male residents who were eligible for the military service. From 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2016, the working positions, which had been object of public selection, were reserved to volunteers who had a conscription in the Italian Armed Forces for one year (VFP1) or for four years (VFP4). On 1 January 2017, the public selections were newly open to civil citizens and a share of 40% of the available working roles began to be reserved to them. The psycho-physical requisites were the same fixed by the Decree of Italian President of Republic n. 904, which had come into force on 23 December 1983. As of July 2021, the winners of the public exam have to frequent and pass an additional formative course whose duration ranges from around a year for the auxiliary agents to 24 months for the police commissioners. The latter position is solely accessible by people who are graduated with a 5-years degree in Jurisprudence or analogue degree titles.

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