Journey to Italy: The European and UN monitoring of Italian penal and prison policies (original) (raw)
Related papers
Prison, recidivism, and alternative measures to detention in Italy over the past ten years
Rivista di Criminologia, Vittimologia e Sicurezza
article raises once again actual issues regarding prisons, recidivism, and alternative measures to detention. Indeed, prison unfortunately is still an institution reserved, in the great majority of cases, for the weak and marginalised population, with uncertain future prospects regarding social reinsertion. Therefore, the author presents again this contribution, using updated data, to help keep the debate going on these issues. It should be noted that this topic also came up during a conference held in Montreal on 26 th September 2017 at the International Centre for
From the bottom of the bottle: justice, prison and social control in the Italian transition
The ‘conflict between politics and justice’ has been a central feature of the Italian ‘transition’ for reasons that touch on the essence of the so-called Second Republic. Apparently dominating the political agenda, it also functioned as a cover for a resurgence of coercive forms of social control in Italy. In response to the social transformations taking place throughout the western world, from the late 1980s the Italian prison system had been expanding and was used to target social marginal groups, especially foreigners and drug addicts. This paper examines how these changes took place, the juridical measures that gave rise to them and their political motivations in the period from the crisis of the First Republic to the declaration of a ‘state of emergency’ in the prison system which (at least for now) seems to have brought to a close the openly populist use of the criminal justice system. Here is an open access to the full text for the first 50 readers: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/7bsYM3apypp8u37xRMQ5/full
Journal of Prison Education and Reentry
The contribution analyses the current Italian prison system, which has been called upon on to resolve its structural problems. The Council of Europe, in fact, in 2013 condemned Italy for inhuman treatment in its prisons. The principal accusation concerns the problem of overcrowding. The country has responded with solutions such as the application of the open system, which provides cells solely for overnight stays, and dynamic monitoring, an effective system for ensuring order in the institutions. These initiatives aim to promote re-educational activities and the social re-integration of prisoners. In addition, Italian institutions have made greater use of alternatives to custodial penalties in order to tackle overcrowding and to provide more opportunities for social re-integration.This contribution focuses on the need to increase prisoners’ employment opportunities. In fact, Italy seems to have neglected this area, which is fundamental for re-integration into the community sphere.
The ones "caged" in Italy: a focus on foreigners
2014
This analysis focus on prison overcrowding and foreign inmates mostly in the aftermath of Strasbourg Court decision to reject the final appeal advanced by Italy and, consequently, adopt the former request of the European Court of Human Rights 1 which obliges the Italian country to rapidly resolve prison overcrowding (within a year from May 27 th 2013) and provide for compensation the prisoners who are victims of that situation. Indeed, Strasbourg Court has called on Italy to address overpopulation in prisons as the overcrowding rate (Ov = Pp / Pc *100) 2 reached 142.5% in November 2012 3 and though slightly declined – touched the alarming level of 139.9% in March 2013, far exceeding the European one (99.6%). In other words, the 206 Italian prisons were housing 140 inmates for every 100 places of standard capacity.
The penality of politics, penality in contemporary Italy 1970-2000
2013
The thesis is a socio-legal account of Italian penality between 1970 and 2000. It analyses the Italian experience as a critical case study with which to test David Garland, Alessandro De Giorgi and Nicola Lacey's theories of punishment in contemporary Western polities. It argues that Italian penality is not sufficiently explained by reference to Garland or De Giorgi's metatheories of 'late modern' and 'post-Fordist' punishment. Lacey's institutional analysis provides a better framework, if modified to allow for the centrality of political dynamics in Italy. This thesis would have been an entirely different, and far less enjoyable, experience had it not been for my supervisors Nicola Lacey and Peter Ramsay. My thanks go to them for their support, insight and friendship over the years: they have been inexhaustible sources of inspiration. Thanks also to Tim Newburn, for reading and commenting on an early version of Chapter 2, and steering me towards an ever responsible use of criminal justice statistics. The Centro Documentazione Caritas Ambrosiana, with its library and resources, were essential for my research in Chapter 6. Many many thanks go to Linda Mulcahy, for her invaluable support throughout the last years of the PhD, and to Mike Redmayne for being a great teaching mentor. Thanks, of course, go to the LSE, the LSE Law Department, and the Olive Stone Memorial Fund, whose financial support made the writing of the whole thesis possible. I want to thank my parents, Tiziana Della Puppa and Cirino Gallo, for their guidance, love and patience, their immense foresight, and the great personal sacrifice they were willing to make for me. Finally, I would like to thank Sean Deel, my wonderful partner, who even read this thesis abstract to bibliography. All responsibility for the contents of this thesis, and any errors it may contain, is solely my own. Insofar as both Garland and De Giorgi use explanatory categorieslate modernity and post-Fordismthat transcend specific contexts, it can be assumed that their theories purport to apply across Western nations 7. By contrast to both Garland and De Giorgi, Nicola Lacey addresses the issue of divergence in punishment across Western nations. Her starting observation is that increasing punitiveness, as manifest in increasing imprisonment, is a reality only for certain western nations: notably the United States and, in Europe, the United Kingdom. Differences should be drawn even between these two nations 8 , but where the UK is then compared to nations such as Germany, we also witness a striking contrast. Germany has displayed penal stability across the decades 9 , and Lacey uses this fact as an illustration of the broader point that contemporary penality is articulated differently across different nations 10. Moreover, she argues that this difference can be explained by reference to different 'varieties of capitalism' 11. In particular, she contrasts so-called liberal market economies (LMEs) and coordinated market economies (CMEs) and their institutional structures. To summarise, Lacey's argument is that different institutional structures create different penal incentives. In liberal-market economies exclusion from economy and body politic through incarceration has relatively low costs. By contrast the organisation of coordinated market economies makes it more 'sensible' to reintegrate deviants. Where, as in CMEs, reintegration is the more advantageous option, we may then find lower, more stable, rates of imprisonment. Lacey hypothesises that in nations that display greater penal leniency, the institutional structure has intercepted the 'global level' changes associated with 'late modernity' and/or 'post-Fordism', to yield different penal outcomes. In this sense the 'punitiveness' of Garland and De Giorgi's account is more situated than their explanatory categories would lead us to believe. Where does Italy fit within this scenario? Italy is a 'contemporary Western European nation'; this means that it too is presumed to have transitioned into 'late modernity' or into 'post-Fordism'. As a Western European nation it is also a suitable subject for Lacey's analysis of penal divergence. Though Italy is neither an LME nor a CME (Chapter 3) it too presents an institutional structure that will have 'intercepted' changes in the global political economy, and in the socio-political structure. This means that Italy can provide an illustration of how national institutions affect penality, whether it is to produce punitiveness or leniency. 7 Ibid., p. 75 8 The USA's prison rates (1970-2006) are so high that they stand alone compared to other Western nations: see Lacey's figures for world imprisonment rates with and without the USA (
Fight Against Recidivism in Italy: A Case-Study Analysis
2020
Reducing the rate of recidivism and promoting social and community (re)integration trajectories means supporting offenders to allow them to regain their place in society. It is through social reintegration programs, both inside and outside prisons, that the State, via the prison administration, tries to translate the dictates of article 27 of the Italian Constitution into pratictal terms, that is: "Punishment cannot consist in inhuman treatment and must aim at the rehabilitation of the convicted person".
Sociology Mind, 2014
This article deals with punishment and prisons, in particular, the rehabilitative role of punishment in Italian prisons. This role is herewith specified: On the one hand, by sociological considerations on punishment and prisons, based on the studies of Clemmer and Goffman; on the other hand, by international rules and the Italian legislation, dating back to the Reform of the Penitentiary Code 1975 and lastly, from a critical point of view. Generally speaking, the term rehabilitative model in this context means to restore solidarity with the socially recognized values, reconstructing the broken citizenship bond.