I experienced prison firsthand both before and after the Torreggiani ruling. 

In 2012 in Reggio Calabria — and I am talking about a few years ago, not the Nineties — they put me in a cell with eleven people where at most half that number could fit. It was something unbelievable: we had the fourth bunk bed, a wall of iron that reached almost to the ceiling. 

When the appeals for overcrowding began, they did not solve the problem, they just moved us from one prison to another as if we were parcels. The only thing that changed is that the bunk beds went from four tiers to three, but life was always the same. 

There we were in a closed regime, we stayed inside at all times except for the hour of fresh air. You could shower only three times a week and only while the others were outside for the walk: in practice you had to choose between going out to breathe some light or washing yourself. It was a humiliation that weighed on you inside every day. 

In Vibo Valentia there was a shower every day, but we had 45 minutes of water in total to share among six people. You had to do everything in a rush: I would soap up while my cellmate used the water to rinse off, and we took turns like that. They made you live in conditions that stripped you of your dignity. 

At Rebibbia I saw the most incredible overcrowding: we were eighteen in a large cell built for six people, with only two bathrooms for everyone. Total chaos. 

At San Vittore the situation was already very heavy back in the Nineties: we were six in a tiny hole designed for two people. To eat we had to take turns, because there was no physical space for everyone to be down from their bunks at the same time. One would climb down, eat at the table and then immediately climb back up onto the bunk to make room for the next. An absurd situation. 

But the worst thing is not just the lack of space, it is how humiliated you feel. 

In Brescia, on top of being on top of each other even when we went out to walk in the courtyard, I witnessed serious abuse against the most vulnerable people or those with problems. 

When you live like that you understand that the whole system is torture, it is not just a matter of how many square meters you have available.