Menu

Mental health, detention &

human rights

  • The Project

Looking beyond
the law on paper

SHIELD examines how the system operates in practice across different Italian regions, connecting legal norms with everyday institutional realities and the conditions that shape detention and care.

The project aims to identify structural risks, clarify systemic gaps and support more humane and legally compliant responses to mental health detention. Its findings are intended to be academically rigorous, practically relevant and useful to wider reform debates.

Mental Health Protecting Rights Research
Mental Health Protecting Rights Research
  • Objectives

From legal norms to everyday practice.

Identify systemic gaps in mental health detention.

Assess how legal and institutional frameworks operate in practice.

Compare regional patterns of implementation and reform.

Develop lessons that may be transferable to broader European discussions on rights and detention.

  • Research context

Italy as a Case Study for Reform

Italy represents a particularly relevant context for examining institutional reform following the closure of judicial psychiatric hospitals and the development of REMS and community-based responses. This transition provides a valuable framework for analysing the interaction between legal reform, institutional structures and regional implementation.

Previous model

OPG

Ospedali Psichiatrici Giudiziari, the former judicial psychiatric hospital model.

Institutional change

Transition

A legal and institutional shift that reshaped responsibility, treatment and implementation.

Current landscape

REMS + community

Residences for the Execution of Security Measures and community-based models.

Why the project matters

People with mental health conditions in criminal justice systems may be exposed to structural risks linked to detention, access to care, legal uncertainty, and institutional fragmentation. SHIELD examines these problems in order to better understand how rights protections can be strengthened in practice.

  • Research context

Methodological approach

The project combines legal analysis, institutional mapping, comparative regional assessment, and interdisciplinary dialogue. SHIELD’s aim is to connect legal norms with everyday practice and with the institutional conditions that shape detention and care.

01

Law

Evidence and legal analysis

02

Institutions

Institutional mapping

03

Practice

Comparative regional assessment

04

Rights

Interdisciplinary dialogue

Publications, conference presentations, project reports, recommendations and selected resources will be added as they become publicly available.

  • Research & Outputs

Knowledge built progressively

  • Research themes
  • Outputs
  • Resources

Materials forthcoming →

Materials forthcoming →

Materials forthcoming →

  • Research themes
  • Outputs
  • Resources

Materials forthcoming →

Materials forthcoming →

Materials forthcoming →

  • News & Events

An academic agenda, not a blog feed.

The section is prepared for workshops, Researchers’ Night activities, policy roundtables, research milestones, visiting activities and newly released outputs.

  • News
  • Events
Updates forthcoming →

SHIELD will share research milestones, workshops, public events, publications, and policy outputs as they become available.

Please check back soon

Updates forthcoming →

SHIELD will share research milestones, workshops, public events, publications, and policy outputs as they become available.

Please check back soon

Contact Us

  • FAQs
SHIELD is a research project at the University of Turin. It examines how people with mental health conditions in the Italian criminal justice system are detained and cared for. Its focus is on Residences for the Execution of Security Measures (REMS) and mental health units in prisons. The project asks whether these settings protect human rights in practice, in particular the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment. It also aims to identify rights-compliant improvements.
 
SHIELD is funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (Grant Agreement No. 101275356). The research is hosted by the Department of Law of the University of Turin and supervised by Professor Giovanni Torrente.
 

A REMS (Residenza per l’Esecuzione delle Misure di Sicurezza) is a residential facility for people who have committed an offence but are considered not criminally responsible, or only partly responsible, because of a mental health condition. A court must also judge them to be socially dangerous. REMS replaced Italy’s former judicial psychiatric hospitals (OPG). They are run by regional health services rather than the prison administration. They are small, care-oriented facilities, and the law treats detention in them as a measure of last resort.

These are dedicated units inside prisons (Articolazioni per la Tutela della Salute Mentale, ATSM). They care for prisoners whose mental health conditions arise or worsen during imprisonment. They operate within the prison system, with clinical care provided by the regional health service. Combining custody and treatment in this way raises particular questions for human rights protection.

Law No. 81 of 30 May 2014 completed the closure of Italy’s judicial psychiatric hospitals and confirmed the shift to REMS and community-based care. It establishes that detention in a REMS should be a last resort, used only when other measures are inadequate. It also limits the maximum length of detention-based security measures to the maximum prison sentence for the offence committed. This aims to prevent indefinite detention.
 

The research involves professionals who work in or with REMS and prison mental health units. This includes administrators, psychiatrists and psychologists, educators, nursing and support staff, prison staff, and legal professionals. Patients and detained people are not interviewed. Participation is voluntary and based on informed consent, and participants may withdraw at any time. Fieldwork is arranged in advance with the competent authorities to avoid disrupting the work of institutions.

SHIELD processes personal data in line with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Italian data protection law, and the University of Turin’s policies. Interview and focus group data are pseudonymized. They are stored securely and used only for research purposes. Findings are reported in a way that does not identify individual participants. The project does not access clinical or personal records of patients or detained people. Further details are provided in the participant information sheet and the website’s privacy policy.
 
For questions about the research, collaboration or participation, please use the contact form or write to contact@projectshield.eu
 
Mental Health Protecting Rights Research
Mental Health Protecting Rights Research

Funded by the European Union under Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – GA No. 101275356. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Facebook Linkedin Instagram

© 2026 SHIELD Project. All right reserved. Powered by

Privacy policy

Cookie policy

Automatic translation is provided for convenience. The English version is the authoritative version of this website.

We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. View more
Cookies settings
Accept
Privacy & Cookie policy
Privacy & Cookies policy
Cookies list
Cookie name Active

Who we are

Suggested text: Our website address is: https://shield.makelink.it.

Comments

Suggested text: When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

Suggested text: If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

Suggested text: If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select "Remember Me", your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Suggested text: Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Who we share your data with

Suggested text: If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

How long we retain your data

Suggested text: If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

Suggested text: If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where your data is sent

Suggested text: Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Save settings
Cookies settings