Continuous reports and news stories speak of a prison system that seems to have abandoned any possibility of treating prisoners with dignity. The more the warrants, the higher the recidivism. A "closed" prison, with few social recovery projects, becomes pathogenic and criminogenic: instead of re-educating, it produces a very high rate of recidivism.

There is an unexpected relationship between prison and photography. Since the beginning. You enter into prison, they take your fingerprints and take your photograph. Three shots: frontal, left profile, right profile... You deposit your name and surname at the entrance, and in exchange you become a number.

Mauro D'Agati's photographs propose the everyday life (offended and reduced to a minimum) of penitentiary life.
The images were shot between March and October 2001 in the Italian prisons of: San Vittore, Rebibbia, Poggioreale, Pozzuoli, Ucciardone, Pagliarelli, Forte San Giacomo, Gorgona, Pisa and Piazza Lanza, and in the judicial psychiatric hospitals of Naples, Aversa, Barcellona Pozzo del Gotto and Castiglione delle Stiviere.