It would not be new for the communities that host people being treated for drug addiction, to welcome prisoners, as proposed by Undersecretary Andrea Delmastro, also to empty the prisons. The Undersecretary of Justice said: «I’m working on a provision that imagines involving the Third Sector, those closed San Patrignano-style communities, to build an alternative path to detention”. At the basis of the idea is the desire to try to resolve the issue of overcrowding in penitentiaries, by emptying the prisons of about 30 percent of prisoners with various addictions, especially substances, and relying on private social structures . According to Delmastro, the text of the proposal is still being finalized, so it is not yet possible to define a timetable because first we need to deal with the players in the field, starting with the Third sector entities called into question. «It is a path to be shared with the non-profit world in order to fully understand the structural capacity. And with the Regions that have the delegation to health and will have to certify the cooperatives and control their management. The plan – said Delmastro in an interview with Messenger – it would work like this: the judge already in the sentence can replace the days in prison indicated with an equal number in a protected community. That is, if you are sentenced to two years you can serve them all there. If you then take 8 months to detox, for the remaining time the community will help you train and find work. But the community will be monitored 24 hours a day, if you escape you have blown your second chance and you will be prosecuted for the crime of evasion. And the state, like a good family man, will no longer be able to be trusted. I will not compromise on this. You see, I’m a basic jurist, I embody the average man. But it is a position that I claim because this is what makes us get votes ».
“As guarantor of the rights of detainees I say that it seems strange to me that an undersecretary, who has a government function, speaks as a party exponent”, replies the guarantor of the detainees Mauro Palma. Who adds: «The proposal has its own dignity. And with some necessary corrections it can work. In general – he argues – one must never confuse social-health problems with penal ones. I don’t think the path of hybrid structures is feasible. In any case, I believe it is appropriate to avoid “black or white” discourses: the situations of prisoners with drug addiction problems are very different, while Undersecretary of Justice Delmastro does not seem to make any difference. There are people in prison for what paragraph 5 of article 73 of the consolidated law on drugs defines as ‘minor trafficking’. For them, the path must be completely rethought, getting them out of prison. Then there are prisoners with addictions guilty of ‘small drug dealing’: the community would be very good for them, as long as it has a connotation of taking charge and is not closed and hard. Then there are prisoners with histories of addiction, drug dealing and other crimes, for which a dialogue between the community and the penitentiary structure is needed, which is however inevitable”.
In short, the key concept for the Palma guarantor is the differentiation and personalization of the itineraries. The same argument also applies to rehabilitation communities which are a set of very varied realities. «Communities are different, there are more or less intense ones and it is right that there are nuances and diversity of therapeutic approaches: here too, black or white never works». The undersecretary is right instead, acknowledges Palma, to think of a pact with the regions, which have a duty in the territories to ensure the health of everyone, including prisoners, and the bodies of the Third sector. For example, on March 7, inside the Rebibbia Female Prison, in Rome, an inmate with several substance addiction problems has died. “It is a person who had been in prison almost twenty times. We should ask ourselves – concludes Palma – what the territory has done for her and if even the internal health services of the institute could not have opened a better dialogue. And we should ask ourselves what prison could do for a person like her».
Drugs lead many people behind bars who shouldn’t be in jail: “Not in my opinion – explains Dr. Francesco Scopelliti, director of the penitentiary structures of the Asst Santi Carlo e Paolo in Milan -, but on the basis of law 309 of ’90. To go in this direction, 27 years ago in Milan we created a team within the court that intervenes by formulating a therapeutic program that we present to the judge of the direct section who in this way, once the sentence has been issued, can send the arrested person with addictions from drugs in a community or SerD place as an alternative to imprisonment”. The revolution lies in transforming the court into a health resort with the aim of intercepting defendants with drug addiction problems and proposing them an rehabilitation process, thanks to the presence of social workers, psychologists and doctors in the courtroom during court hearings: «With this type of intervention, which we have been trying to export from Milan for years – concludes Scopelliti – we intercept 600 people every year who are given the possibility of starting treatment early, increasing the chances of success of the intervention».