Project description
Shielding Italy’s fragmented forensic mental health system
Inadequate mental healthcare and poor custodial conditions can lead to inhumane treatment of patients. In Italy, the closure of psychiatric asylums has resulted in a fragmented forensic mental health system. There is a need to identify the factors contributing to these violations. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the SHIELD project will establish a rights-based framework to prevent inhumane treatment in Italy’s mental healthcare and custodial settings. It will analyse the issues in residences for the execution of security measures and prison mental health units under international human rights law. Using a multi-method approach, the project will conduct interviews and focus groups to pinpoint failures in rights protections and explore effective alternatives.
Objective
SHIELD develops a rights-based framework to prevent inhuman or degrading treatment arising from inadequate mental health care and custodial conditions. It addresses the legal, clinical, and institutional factors that contribute to such violations in Italy, where the abolition of psychiatric asylums has produced a fragmented system of forensic mental health detention. The project examines how control, care, and accountability function within Residences for the Execution of Security Measures (REMS) and Prison Mental Health Units (PHMs), hybrid facilities that raise critical concerns under international human rights law.
Using a doctrinal, empirical, and comparative methodology grounded in an interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach, SHIELD will map the legal architecture and operational practices of these institutions across eight Italian regions. Fieldwork will involve interviews and focus groups with administrators, clinicians, staff, and legal actors to identify how rights protections fail and which interventions offer scalable, rights-compliant alternatives.
The research is hosted by the University of Turin under the supervision of Professor Giovanni Torrente, a leading expert in prison health, legal safeguards, and interdisciplinary criminology. The host institution’s long-standing collaboration with NGOs and oversight bodies ensures access to key sites and stakeholders essential to the project’s success.
SHIELD will strengthen my position as an interdisciplinary legal scholar by producing policy-relevant outputs, international publications, and a robust foundation for an independent research agenda at the intersection of law, psychiatry, and detention. It will also support future competitive funding applications and enable me to assume leadership in cross-sectoral research as a principal investigator at the European level.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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10124 Torino
Italy
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