Sting will play a guitar made from migrant boat wood – and built by inmates – at an Italian jail housing mafia bosses

Iconic British songwriter and performer Sting is due to perform for inmates at a jail in Naples, Italy soon and has said he will use a guitar crafted by prisoners – using wood salvaged from a migrant boat – during the set. 

According to UK newspaper The Times [paywalled], the guitar has been built by inmates at Naples’ Secondigliano jail – an institution notorious for housing mafia bosses, among other convicts.

Selected inmates at the prison have been taught woodworking skills under the country’s Metamorfosi program, which has been rolled out across a number of Italy’s jails. Alongside guitars, prisoners have put their skills to use crafting other instruments, in particular violins, and even crucifixes. 

The projects have been given special significance as they use wood salvaged from migrant boats that have landed or been wrecked on the island of Lampedusa. 

The Italian territory is positioned far off the country’s south coast – nearer Tunisia and the African continent than the Italian mainland – and has therefore become a destination point for many migrant crossings.

The inmates’ Metamorfosi instruments and other creations therefore serve a dual purpose in aiding the rehabilitation of prisoners and highlighting the plight of the migrants undertaking the incredibly risky Mediterranean crossings. 

Indeed, as The Times notes, more than 500 people have already lost their lives attempting such crossings in the first few months of 2023 alone.

Italian newspaper La Repubblica [again, paywalled] is now reporting that Sting will use one of the inmates’ guitar builds in his forthcoming performance at the Neapolitan prison. 

Given the unique security obligations of the show, we’ll have to wait and see whether pictures or footage of the instrument in use emerge and we don’t know, for instance, whether it’s an acoustic or electric guitar. However, in this situation, it’s obviously the thought – not the spec – that counts.

As Sting puts it in his quote for the paper: “I believe the instruments created by the foundation… represent the beauty and the dignity in all human beings.”