Antigone is an Italian Ngo born in 1991 and dealing with human right protection in penal and penitentiary system. Antigone carries on a cultural work on public opinion through campaigns, education, media, publications and the academic review «Antigone» (three issues for year). Many studies and researches on penal and penitentiarty issues are conducted by Antigone. Antigone cooperates in writing normative texts. An Observatory on Italian prisons, involving around 50 people, is also active since 1998, when Antigone received from the Ministry of Justice special authorizations to visit prisons with the same power that the law gives to parliamentarians. Every year Antigone’s Observatory publishes a Report on Italian penitentiary system. Through a prison Ombudsman to which it gave birth, Antigone also collects complaints from prisons and police stations and mediates with the Administration in order to solve specific problems. Furthermore, Antigone’s lawyers and physicians operate in some Italian prisons giving suggestions and monitoring life conditions. Antigone also carries on investigations about ill-treatments and sometimes is formally involved in the related trials. "Jailhouse Rock" is a weekly radio broadcast on music and prisons authored and hosted by Antigone. Antigone leads a European Observatory on prisons involving nine European Countries and funded by the European Union.
