Rebuilding relationships

Some prisoners are more alone than others. More marginalized. Men who arrive in our country fleeing war and poverty. They cross the border illegally, without documents or identity. But they are not unknown to criminals; they are a valuable resource. They commit acts that lead to their detention: in Italy, approximately 30% of inmates are foreigners. And many of them are illegal.

And it is precisely these people that Giovanni Monti, the director of the Bolzano prison, has in mind. A place in need of modernization, which, like many other Italian prisons, suffers from chronic overcrowding and houses 88 of the 122 inmates are foreigners. They come from North Africa, Afghanistan, and Syria. They have abandoned their homeland, their families, and often no longer know anything about their relatives.

For this reason, the director decided to involve the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Society to extend the Restoring Family Links (RFL) service to foreigners in prison, providing assistance and tracing to people from war zones or humanitarian crises. This collaboration resulted in a memorandum of understanding signed in early May by the director of the Bolzano prison and the president of the Committee of the Autonomous Province of Trento and Bolzano, Manuel Pallua. The agreement stipulates that Red Cross volunteers and RFL workers will meet in dedicated, confidential rooms with inmates who have requested, through the prison management, to trace their family members. "Our goal," the director explained, "is to at least offer these inmates a video call, and in this, the Red Cross and RFL workers can be very helpful in tracking down official documents certifying family ties, which are essential for authorizing phone calls. In this way, we are trying to ensure that foreigners maintain family relationships—which are an essential part of their treatment—but also to take the first steps to more strongly support their attempts at regularization.

Despite the dilapidated structure, unsuitable for carrying out activities within it, the management has managed to organize cooking and literacy courses, and a bicycle workshop that also offers bicycle repair services to citizens. In an interview with the Ministry of Justice portal, Monti emphasized the importance of networking because "only by collaborating can we simplify the complexity of a prison environment and enable all staff to perform their roles to the fullest."


Chiara Genisio
NP June/July 2025