by Federica Danielli
“Criminal liability is personal.
The accused is not considered guilty until the final conviction.
Punishments cannot consist of treatments contrary to the sense of humanity and must aim at the re-education of the convicted person [see art. 13 c. 4].
The death penalty is not permitted.”
According to article 27 of the Italian Constitution, the punishment inflicted on a convicted person must correspond to the crime committed and must aim at his re-education. A similar thought can also be found in Hegel’s philosophy: in fact, in one of his works, “Encyclopedia of Philosophical Laws in Compendium”, the philosopher deals with law, morality and ethics. According to Hegel, when a wrong action is committed against the law, the punishment assigned to the offender must be proportional to the crime committed and not be vindictive, so that person can return “affirmed” in society. Therefore, in accordance with this discourse, the person who commits a murder must be sentenced to death (Hegel was in favor of the death penalty).
However, what is formally proposed can also be respected in practice?
As we well know, prison has been seen as the location where this re-education should take place with the subsequent reintegration of the convicted person into society, but do we really know what happens inside a prison? What the law proposes makes prison repair and not punish, makes it a tool of teaching and not suppression?
In this regard we have some examples such as Norwegian prisons and Italian sperimental jail Bollate and Opera in Milan.
However these ones are rare cases, most of our prisons are conceived as places of segregation, places that must be completely separated from the rest of the community, where acts that go against human rights often occur. This can be seen in Rocco D’amato prison or “casa circondariale”, also known as the “Dozza”- the prison in Bologna. Here, although it is not one of the worst in Italy, it is possible to find difficult situations for the prisoner: primary needs are often missing, such as clothes, underwear, hygiene, the food served is not enough or poorly cooked, due to the lack of professional chefs or time for preparation. Not to mention the overcrowding situation, which denies the particular needs of each individual’s personality.
On the other hand, according to the association “Poggeschiperilcarcere”, Norway has a recidivism rate of 20%.These are some of the only prisons that seem to respect human rights and aim at a real re-education of the offender.
For example, Halden Prison is a model of how a prison should be run: the inmates often live in better conditions than outside. First of all, it doesn’t look like a prison if it weren’t for the wall that surrounds it. The windows have no bars, there are also no cameras; not in the corridors, nor in the rooms, classrooms or laboratories. The officers have no weapons, an innovative security concept known as “dynamic security” is used: the officers mix with the inmates and, being permanently present, can manage and prevent potential conflicts by discussing problems with the inmates on site. The concept applied here is the one applied all over Norway: life in prison should not be different from life outside prison; the only difference is the lack of freedom of movement. The sentence should not deprive the inmate of what he needs; the inmates are prepared for their release from their first day in prison.
It is a totally different approach, applied also in Bollate and Opera, and it seems to work better than the one applied in most of our italian prisons.
So why, if we have concrete evidence of this positive approach, do we not apply it in all prisons? If the most efficient prisons are the experimental ones, why not make them definitive?
MINGOMagazine 