Places of care in italian forensic psychiatry: therapeutic aspects and critical issues in an evolving system

Abstract

The treatment of individuals with mental disorders subject to security measures or restricted within the
prison circuit has benefited over the past few decades from a season of reforms that have significantly
changed the landscape of treatment settings in Italy. This change has most clearly and radically affected
the area of security measures, and to a lesser extent, till now, mental health care within prison settings.
In both cases, it is community psychiatry, organized around the Departments of Mental Health, that is
picking up the difficult baton of ensuring adequate and effective treatments for individuals with specific
clinical and social characteristics. In this paper, we try to investigate how places of care at different degree
of restriction, from correctional settings to therapeutic residencies, have refined their caring practice and
what critical issues crowd out the daily lives of those engaged in this strenuous exercise of care.