The right to education , as enshrined in Article 34 of our Constitution, plays a central role in promoting human dignity, even within penitentiary institutions, as it represents one of the most powerful deterrents to social rehabilitation.
Compulsory education in prison: from reform law 354/1975 to Presidential Decree 230/2000
Prison education was regulated in Italy as early as the late nineteenth century, with a Regulation of 1891 that emphasized that prison was not only a place to serve a sentence, but also a place of re-education . With the rise of Fascism, this humanization of prison disappeared, as only free individuals could access education. However, the official birth of prison education was established in 1958 with Law No. 503 of April 3. Before 1975, the year in which the Penitentiary System was reformed , school courses and activities held within penitentiary institutions served to keep prisoners occupied and break their isolation.
With the 1975 reform, however, greater attention was paid to re-education. The cultural approach that inspired the text of the Penitentiary System was to consider detention not a definitive state, but a transitory one, a time when the inmate has the opportunity to grow both personally and socially. Italian Penitentiary Law No. 354, entitled "Rules on the Penitentiary System and the Execution of Measures Depriving and Restricting Liberty," was approved in 1975, and the related Implementation Regulation was issued the following year.
Educational activities
Regarding educational activities, these are regulated by the 1975 law, article 19. With the enactment of the aforementioned law, the legislator states that compulsory schooling held in prison must be perfectly aligned with that held outside to give prisoners the opportunity to continue their education once their sentence has been served. It also places particular attention on a specific segment of the prison population, between 18 and 25 years old, known as " young adults ," as for them, education represents an excellent deterrent to social redemption. A significant shift in the perspective of the treatment regime came with Presidential Decree no. 230/2000.
The most significant article of the Regulation is Article 40 , which allows prisoners to keep in their cells devices such as computers, portable tape and CD players necessary for work or study. This provision established a new concept of education: free education, worthy of being facilitated in all possible ways, consistent with the security requirements of the prison environment.
The figure of the teacher in prison
The official birth of education within penitentiary institutions occurred in 1958 with Law No. 503. In the same year, Law No. 535 provided for the appointment of elementary school teachers in prison. These teachers were offered a temporary position, accessible only through a competitive exam, and required a five-year tenure. After five years, teachers could apply for a transfer to a public school. Teachers were employed on temporary contracts while awaiting permanent appointments in public schools. The teachers' psychological condition must have been poor, both because the detained students had poor study habits and because of the difficult conditions in which they were forced to study.
With the advent of the 1960s, greater attention was placed on the importance of pedagogy in a penal system no longer conceived as repressive, but rather aimed at prevention. Transitional roles were definitively abolished by Law 72/1963, with the establishment of a new role called " Special Role for Teaching in Elementary Schools in Prisons and Penitentiary Facilities ." Currently, in adult penitentiaries, educational activities are overseen by the Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR), which has institutional responsibility for both the implementation of courses within prison facilities and the assignment of teaching staff, in accordance with the training needs set by the Regional Penitentiary Administration Boards (PRAP). Following the issuance of the Ministerial Decree of 25 October 2007, the Permanent Territorial Centres, established with Ministerial Decree 455/97, were transformed into Provincial Centres for Adult Education (CPIA).
Teaching “inside”
For teachers, teaching "inside" is an overwhelming experience, both on a strictly professional level and for the life lessons that can be learned from contact with an inmate. Over time, teachers who enter prison acquire the intrinsic value of their work, which is not only imparting knowledge to the incarcerated student, but also unleashing latent, suppressed, and often uncultivated potential. Gaining recognition as a prison teacher is not automatic; in fact, teachers are often discredited by inmates based on their poor past school experiences, during which they were marginalized by the school system, to the point of having to relearn how to trust their teachers.
University and prison
Universities became part of the penitentiary landscape in the 1960s thanks to the volunteer work of several professors from the University of Padua for detained students enrolled in the Faculty of Civil Engineering. The synergy between the prison administration and the university led to the establishment of Penitentiary University Centers (PUP), actual university sections within the prison. These centers were defined by Table 9 of the General States of Penal Execution as: "a system of services and opportunities offered by the University, with the availability of the Penitentiary Administration, in addition to or in place of those normally available to students, proposed in a structured and organized manner based on specific agreements, aimed at overcoming the obstacles that objectively hinder the effective exercise of the right to university education by those serving a sentence."
Since 2018, these entities have been coordinated by the National Conference of Rectors' Delegates for Penitentiary University Centers (CNUPP), established by the Conference of Rectors of Italian Universities (CRUI). The right to university education is not available to everyone who would be able to exercise it and would have an interest in doing so. It depends on the prison in question, the ability of those in contact with the inmate to engage with the administration and university teaching facilities, and the interest and sensitivity of certain faculty members.
Conclusions
Despite all the legal instruments available to protect the right to education in prison, this right is not guaranteed equally to all inmates, violating the principle of equality enshrined in Article 3 of the Constitution. Not all inmates who request it are able to attend educational courses, primarily due to the lack of specialized educational staff and adequate space for this purpose. A more livable prison environment, with days dedicated to productive activities, was the goal of the 1975 Penitentiary System Reform, and it is the institutions' duty to continue in this direction.
For many prisoners, studying in an organized manner means giving meaning to a difficult experience, that of being deprived of liberty: many find in studying an opportunity for redemption, reflection, the chance to take control of their lives and plan for the future. This is not only because of the material value a diploma or degree can have or its marketability, but also because of the different self-image the prisoner can project to society, a different image from the one usually associated with ex-prisoners, labeled as society's rejects.
Claudia Giardini
Bibliographic references and webography
- Albano T., Education in prison, accademia.edu;
- Antigone Onlus Association, XV Report on conditions of detention: University centres in prison, The right of prisoners to university studies: the experience of penitentiary university centres in Italy, 2019.
- Casaro A., Teaching Inside: The Role of the Prison Teacher, Studium Educationis, 2019.
- Presidential Decree No. 230 of June 30, 2000, https://www.gazzettaufficiale.it
- December L., Education and training in prison: universities, skills and
- https://www.gazzettaufficiale.it.
- Palma, Albertini, Cavalli, Ferraro, Marzagalli, Mosso, Rossi, Tolu, Vallini, Venturini, General States of Criminal Enforcement, 2016.
- Tomb C., The right to education under a regime of restrictions on liberty, Penitentiary and Constitutional Law.
