Recomposing the brotherhood

In the prison world, recidivism is around 62%, multiple recidivism is 18%. Italy is among the European countries that spends the most on prisoners, around 154 euros a day, of which 6 to maintain them and only 35 cents for re-education activities despite it being provided for by the Constitution.

A prison population that is not very representative of society, as analyzed by Giuseppe Falvo (photo), criminal lawyer, in the jointly written book Democracy.
The challenge of brotherhood, the result of the work of the Community of Connections created by Father Francesco Occhetta. The author underlines how approximately 5% of prisoners are illiterate, 45% are foreigners, 38% are homeless, only 1% have a degree. Over 73% of incarcerated people are serving a final sentence, 14% are awaiting trial, almost 7% are awaiting an appeal sentence and 4% await the judgment of the Court of Cassation. 6.6% of prisoners have a sentence of more than 20 years, those sentenced to life imprisonment are 4.6%.

Numbers that offer only one aspect of the life of those serving a sentence within the walls of a prison. In the last year the number of those who have surrendered, who have no longer found the strength to continue living in confinement, has increased; the Italian average of suicides in prisons is 7.7%. In other European countries it stops at 5.4%. In a context of overcrowding and poor re-education work, the idea of ​​a new penal system is urgent.

One path Falvo still suggests is that of restorative justice. A «model of justice that voluntarily involves the offender, the victim and the community in the search for solutions to the conflict, in order to promote the repair of damage, reconciliation between the parties and the strengthening of the sense of security. It goes beyond the logic of punishment, proposing to consider the crime no longer as a conduct that undermines the social order, but rather as a behavior that causes suffering and pain to the victim and which urges the offender to take action with forms of reparation for the outrage caused", this is how the M.E.D.I.A.Re project, promoted by the Department of Penitentiary Administration, defines restorative justice.

As the lawyer explains, "restorative justice is complementary to the current system, it renews at the root the sanctioning responses, traditionally based on the combination of retribution and prevention, it goes beyond the logic of punishment and has the relationship at its centre, because the ultimate foundation of restorative justice - concludes Falvo – it is the recomposition of the fraternity."

Chiara Genisio
NP August / September 2024