Centro Sociale ExKarcere, Palermo, Visitor Guide & Things to Do Nearby

Centro Sociale ExKarcere is a social center on Via S. Basilio in Palermo, housed in a building that used to be a prison. It is a place where a site of confinement has become a community space, and it sits in a city whose recent history is closely tied to the story of the Sicilian Mafia.

The story behind it

The building was once a prison and now serves as a social center, which is where the name ExKarcere comes from: the former jail. Social centers in Italy are usually community-run spaces for meetings, events and local activities, so the change of use says a lot about how the building has been given a new purpose.

On a walk through Palermo, the place also stands as a reminder of the years of violence the city lived through. The Mafia fought bloody wars among its own clans and against the state. The first, in the early 1960s, was driven by struggles over the heroin trade. The second, often called the Mattanza, or slaughter, was led by the Corleonesi faction under Salvatore Riina, known as The Beast. It began in April 1981 with the killing of Stefano Bontade, a powerful Palermo boss. The Corleonesi then eliminated rival bosses and their families one by one, took control of the Mafia Commission and left Riina as the dominant figure. Hundreds died, and public and government pressure on the Mafia grew sharply as a result.

What to look for

• Notice the building itself and how its solid, institutional character contrasts with its present life as a community space.
• Look at the address, Via S. Basilio, and the streets around it to get a sense of the everyday neighborhood that surrounds the former prison.
• Pay attention to any posters, notices or signs outside, which often show what events and activities the social center currently hosts.
• Think about the change of use: a place built to hold people now run as an open space for the local community.

Tips for your visit

• Plan a short stop of 10 to 15 minutes if you only want to see the exterior and take in the setting.
• Daylight is the best time to look at the building and the surrounding streets comfortably.
• A social center is a community space, so check current opening hours and whether any event is open to visitors before you try to go inside.
• Combine the visit with a walk through the surrounding historic streets of Palermo rather than treating it as a single stop.

See it on a quest

Palermo Undercover: Mafia Secrets passes this place. You reach it on foot as one stop of a longer route through the area, the app tells you about each place as you arrive, and you solve a puzzle based on what is in front of you. The mafia theme suits a building like this one. It is a paid quest, and one ticket covers the whole group.