Change of steps

There is not only prison as the only answer to the crimes committed. An important statement in particular because it is pronounced by the Minister of Justice Marta Cartabia, constitutionalist, academic, the first woman to hold the position of President of the Constitutional Court. A few days after her appointment in the Draghi government, the Keeper of Seals, during the hearing in the Justice Committee in the House, anticipated her position on the reduction of the sentence.

For the Minister Cartabia it is necessary to move towards overcoming the idea of ​​prison as the only effective response to the crime: "The" certainty of punishment "is not the" certainty of prison ", which due to the desocializing effects it entails must be invoked as an extrema ratio ". A nice change of pace on this issue. «It is necessary to value rather the alternatives to prison, already as main penalties - she stressed again -. A commitment that you intend to undertake is to undertake every useful action to restore the effectiveness of the pecuniary penalties, which in large part today, when they are inflicted, are not carried out. It will also be appropriate to reflect on suspensive measures, as well as on sentences in lieu of short prison sentences, which also serve large margins of ineffectiveness, with the exception of public utility work ".

Priority is to pursue in the re-educational purpose of the sentence that "it is not only a moral and constitutional duty but is also the most effective and effective way to prevent recidivism and, therefore, in the final analysis, to strengthen the security of social life". A position that you had expressed a few days earlier at the XIV United Nations Congress in Kyoto on Crime Prevention. In her video intervention Punishment is never a revenge, the Keeper of Seals illustrated the many projects of public utility works aimed at reintegrating prisoners. "The statistics show you - she said - that a more constructive treatment corresponds to a lower rate of relapse".

On punishment and crime prevention, Minister Cartabia concludes, "our societies can do more or - to quote a famous adage by Gustav Radbruch - something better than criminal law". He also believes that the time is ripe to put the experiences of restorative justice into a system: "In consideration of the importance of the experiences already existing in our legal system, it is necessary to undertake a reform activity to make restorative justice programs accessible in every state and degree of the criminal proceedings, right from the stage of cognition "

Chiara Genisio
NP april 2021