Love behind bars: Italian prisons opens first sex room for inmates

Italy has opened its first-ever sex room for prisoners on Friday. (18 April ’25)The inaugural visit took place in a prison in the central Umbria region, where an inmate was allowed to spend private time with his female partner. This new arrangement follows a ruling by Italy's Constitutional Court, which affirmed that inmates have the right to "intimate meetings" with their partners during visits from outside the prison.

"We are happy because everything went smoothly but it is necessary to maintain the maximum privacy to protect the people involved," Umbria's ombudsman for prisoners' rights, Giuseppe Caforio, told the ANSA news agency.

"We can say that a sort of experiment went well and in the next few days there will be other meetings," he said of the first intimate meeting at the prison in Terni.

In the ruling published in January 2024, the court said inmates should have the right to private meetings with spouses or long-term partners, with no prison guards watching over them. The ruling highlighted that so-called conjugal visits are already permitted in most European countries, including France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, and others. Last week, the justice ministry released new guidelines specifying that inmates approved for intimate visits should be provided with a private room equipped with a bed and a toilet, available for up to two hours. The guidelines also state that the room’s door must remain unlocked, allowing prison staff to intervene if necessary.

Italy’s prison system continues to face severe overcrowding—among the worst in Europe—and has seen a recent surge in inmate suicides. Official figures show that the prison population exceeds 62,000, which is more than 21% above the system’s maximum capacity.