11th Annual International Conference on Sociology, 1-4 May 2017, Athens, Greece

A Panel on Southern European Countries and the most Recent Phase of Neoliberal Globalization: Sociological Insights on Economies, Societies and Polities Navigating into the Crisis

HIGHER EDUCATION IN PRISON AS A PRACTICE OF RESISTANCE IN TIME OF GLOBALISATION AND CRISIS: CONSIDERATIONS STARTING FROM THE ITALIAN AND SPANISH EXPERIENCES

Gerardo Pastore University of , Department of Political Science E-mail: [email protected] • This contribution originates in research work on university education in prison in two southern European countries with very similar prison policy histories: and Spain.

• In Italy and Spain, the prison system's treatment of inmates, with a re-educational and re-socialising objective, was set up in opposition to the prison systems of fascist dictators Mussolini and Franco.

Art. 27… Punishment cannot consist in treatments contrary to human dignity and must aim at rehabilitating the convicted (THE CONSTITUTION OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLIC, 1948)

Art. 25 …Punishments entailing imprisonment and security measures shall be aimed at reeducation and social rehabilitation and may not involve forced labour (Spanish Constitution, 1978) Further developments of these approaches have been promoted by the Council of Europe and the European Union under the definition of minimum standards of detention: consider the preparation of European Prison Rules, adopted by the Council of Europe in 1987 and updated in 2006, and the establishment of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment.

Nevertheless, the European prison system appears contradictory and ambivalent: in theory, it designs and promotes social inclusion; in practice, it continues to ignore the growing distance between prison and society.

The rhetoric of rehabilitation has often morally justified the prison sentence. Transition from "welfare state" to "penal state"

- Process of criminalisation of poverty …and social insecurity (Wacquant, 2000, 2006Castel, 2004)

- Culture and policy of social control (Pratt, 2007; Simon, 2008; Young, 2003; Garland, 2006; Wacquant, 2000, 2006; De Giorgi, 2000; Feeley and Simon, 1992; Matthews, 2009; Fraser, 2003) On several occasions, the European Court of Human Rights has identified and sanctioned inhuman and degrading treatment related to the structural conditions of the prison system Distance between PRISON and SOCIETY

Focusing attention on higher education in prison takes the form of a particularly useful analytical and critical exercise, because it permits questioning the distance between prison and society, stereotypes of the prisoner and stereotypes of prison, for example. Furthermore, it permits capturing the transformative effects of education on the individual and on the system, beyond any rhetoric of treatment. PRISON and UNIVERSITY

In the collective imagination, prison and university appear as worlds apart, distinct universes: common sense has it that criminals belong to the former and respectable persons to the latter…

In general, the prison is associated with the idea of restriction, the university – ideally considered a place of personal and collective growth, of knowledge and of universal openness – with that of freedom

This distance appears even more marked when, having gained access to the place of detention, you find yourself lost in the maze of contradictions that is the prison. It is not just a question of the distance between inside and outside, but the more general lack of consistency between what the law requires and what the prison represents.

To the visitor's eyes, the prison still appears today primarily as an institute of custody, of mere containment of people. It punishes and protects, controls and condemns.

Educational and cultural activities are not exempt from this logic of control founded on the principle of reward. University education in prison: a comparison of Italy and Spain

The prison population in Italy and Spain is very similar in terms of both numbers and socio-demographic situation.

Prisons populations in Italy and Spain (2006-2016)

80000 76.079 73.558 73.929 70000 70.472 68.597 67.100 67.961 66.897 65.701 66.765 64.021 64.791 65.017 62.536 61.614 60000 59.681 58.127 53.623 54.653 52.164 50000 48.693

40000 39.005

30000

20000

10000

0 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 SPAIN ITALY Map of the Prison University Campuses (PUCs) in Italy (2016) Source: our processing from https://www.giustizia.it/giustizia/it/mg_2_19_1_9.page?previsiousPage=mg_2_19_1

In Italy, university study in prison has been given a form of institutionalisation in the context of the launching of Prison University Campuses:

a system of services and opportunities offered by a university with the support of the prison administration, which are additional to or substitutes for those normally accessible by students, proposed in a structural way and organised on the basis of specific agreements, aimed at overcoming the obstacles that hampering the effective exercise of the right to university study (Palma et al., 2016, p. 48).

The map shows the spread of University Campuses in different Italian Prisons. Prison University Campuses in Italy (n = 25) Tab. 1. Prison University Campuses (PUCs) in Italy (1998-2016) Source: our processing from https://www.giustizia.it/giustizia/it/mg_2_19_1_9.page?previsiousPage=mg_2_19_1 Denomination Year Involved prisons Participating Universities Notes 1 PUC of Turin 1998 CC of Turin 2000 2003 2 PUC of Tuscany Prisons in Tuscany 2010

2000 3 PUC of Bologna CC di Bologna E-learning 2013 PUC of Alessandria S. 2001 CR (prison for sentence University of Piemonte Orientale 4 E-learning Michele / Pausania 2008 execution) of Alessandria A. Avogadro

2003 University of Tuscia 2008 University of Cassino 5 University Prison System of Prisons in Lazio E-learning Lazio 2009 “Sapienza” University of Rome, University of Rome Tor Vergata, University of Rome “Roma Tre” 6 PUC of Triveneto 2003 CR of Padua Memorandum of undertaking DAP (Department of 7 2003 CC of Caltagirone E-learning Penitentiary Administration) - University of Catania University of Magna Grecia, 8 PUC of Calabria 2004 CC of Catanzaro Catanzaro

9 PUC of Lecce 2004 CC of Lecce University of Lecce

2004 2007 CC of Sassari / CC of 10 PUC of Sardinia Alghero / Prisons in 2014 Sardinia

Prisons in Abruzzo and Leonardo Da Vinci“ Telematic 11 PUC of Abruzzo 2005 E-learning Molise University of Chieti-Pescara University of Modena e Reggio 12 PUC of Reggio Emilia 2005 CC of Reggio Emilia E-learning Emilia 13 PUC of Brescia Verziano 2006 CR of Brescia Verziano 14 PUC of Sulmona 2006 CR of Sulmona University of L'Aquila Memorandum of undertaking 15 2009 CC Pagliarelli DAP – University of Palermo Prisons in province of 16 Metropolitan PUC of Milan 2013 Università of Milan Bicocca Milan 17 PUC of Teramo 2014 CC of Teramo 18 PUC of Ferrara 2014 CC of Ferrara 19 PUC of Umbria 2015 Prisons in Umbria Prison University Campuses in the Italian context pursue important educational goals and aspire to be seen as ideal bridges between prison and society However, the number of italian inmates enrolled in universities remains very low

University students in prison in Italy (2008-2015). Source: our elaboration on data provided by Ministero della Giustizia, www.giustizia.it

450

400

350

300

250

200

150

100

50

0 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 In Spain, the situation is quite different.

The process of institutionalising university study in prison can be related to the agreement signed in 1983 between UNED, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Justice and the Prison Administration. As is evident, Spain has done notable work at the continental level, at least in terms of range of interested users and length of the experience.

Source: our processing from https://www.giustizia.it/giustizia/it/mg_1_14.wp (for Italy), and Secretaría General del Instituciones Penitenciarias http://www.institucionpenitenciaria.es (for Spain). Discipline and punish

Nevertheless, in both countries, as noted by many researchers (Coralli, 2002; Bardisa Ruiz & others, 2003; Viedma Rojas, 2013), the discretion which is granted to individual prisons and their management in authorising assistance and facilitation for higher education appears excessively wide, such that the transformative power of the learning is still subordinated to requirements related to security, control and punishment. Meanings and values of the higher education in prison ... Fragments of life stories

I started studying, driven more than anything else by the desire not to throw time away. I didn't have a strong motivation to obtain a degree [...] I think that in most cases the guys who decide to enrol in university do so primarily to keep themselves busy, then in some cases the pleasure of studying and the desire to improve take over. And if you manage to improve in here, in large part you improve despite the prison and not thanks to the prison (Antonio, Tuscany PUC) I think I would have gone mad without studying [...] I am an active person, I have always worked. Keeping a prisoner inside without giving him other instruments, all you have is a caged beast that gets angrier [...] I'm afraid of depression, that my brain will stop, and this is also why I study: so that there is "food" for the mind (Aldo, Tuscany PUC).

… each exam gives you more strength and time flies. Whenever I took an exam two months had gone by, my day was full, I had no time for anything else. And then it was a way to stay anchored to the outside world ... seeing professors, studying, staying up to date on what was happening outside (Luca, Tuscany PUC)

One day, something happened that particularly struck me. I asked a volunteer to help me fill out my CV. Reaching the item on profession, I wanted to write detainee – after all I don't have a job in here – but she stopped me, saying that, as well as being detained, I was also a student, so I should write this (Gentian, Padua PUC) Concluding remarks

• Choosing a university path is a way of extricating yourself from an indistinct mass, for making yourself recognisable and reaffirming your presence in the world…

• Study emerges as a relationship: with oneself, with the teacher, with institutions and with society…

• Study should be recognised as having an expansive potential for improvement of the system…

• Through study, moments of freedom are experienced in advance of the terms of imprisonment. Freedom of thought begins to recover people and return them to society in their new capacity as students.