Social reintegration of the convict and participation of the civic comunity: intervention models

Abstract

The will already expressed by the penal legislature of 1975 to improve the approaches for the social reintegration of the convict by involving the community not directly concerned by the rehabilitation actions, is supported by the European Law which presses for a cooperation between the Organisations of the social fabric and the personnel of the prisons to develop a more efficient social rehabilitation of the convicts. In this optic, to face the changes of the past years in the prison community following the major multi-cultural migration flows, the new implementing regulation of the prison system sends a new stimulus for the creation of a new type of cultural mediation operator, also through new agreements with the local authorities. In the scientific documentation on the reintegration of the author of a crime have been encountered many differences considering the number of studies developed – often by local, political or prison institutions, or by those who for different reasons work in this social context – on these topics and related to the nature of these analysis on the reintegration of the convicts. The analysis on the experience of the Information, Orientation and Cultural Mediation Counters in prison, born from an experimental project launched by the Region of Emilia-Romagna on December 1998, is quite interesting. The activities of these Counters can be resumed in four types of intervention: information on the right of the convicts to have a legal protection (also for obtaining an alternative measure to imprisonment); orientation and support for those in search of a ideal condition to help his social reintegration (job, home reference, data, etc.); observation of the evolution of the prison community and monitor their needs; support through interviews assisted by the cultural mediators. This experience exposed the difficulties and the limits of the procedures used, as well as the instruments and intervention models actually necessary. Analysing these topics in depth could be important at a moment characterized by great difficulties and confusion underlined by the documentation on the research of efficient instruments for the reintegration of the author of the crime.