BOLZANO. You can go around the prison. But then it is the bishop who says what needs to be said: «We need to be clear, that structure is not dignified. For those who are detained and for those who work there.” He insists, Ivo Muser in case you didn’t understand: «The city and all of us have been waiting for years, or rather, decades. I’d say it’s time to do something. Not to be silent anymore. Above all, political will is lacking. We simply keep putting it off. And this is not right. It’s a shame for a rich society like ours.” And this is how the issue of Via Dante passes from the political and urban planning level directly to the ethical one. And the question becomes moral: can a civilized city accept all this for a long time? A human emergency, no longer and not only a building emergency. Then there’s the rest. Which however is equally central.
«Despite the context, which does not seem to be suitable for the recovery of the condemned man, I instead see dozens and dozens of agents, officials, specialists who give their all. I only saw humanity and sensitivity in them”, adds Muser. This is why our prison still holds. And also for the dense network of volunteers and associations that are inside and outside the structure. For example Odós. It means way, road, path. It is an “arm” of Caritas and pursues its aims, only that instead of being attentive to the needs of those in society, it supports those in the world who want to return: prisoners, people living alternative sentences, those under house arrest. «Only to go under house arrest – he says Caterina Ioriiwho manages the Odós service – it would be necessary to have a domicile. And now those who are taken to prison and have the right to serve part of their sentence at home do not have a house or a roof.” The typology of the prison population has changed. «Many, the vast majority are foreigners», he confirms Claudio Gottardipresident of the Supervisory Court. And non-EU citizens experience a double punishment. In the sense that semi-freedom also becomes so. «Our house is not enough – insists Iorii – we are looking for accommodation almost everywhere, even temporary. But rents in Bolzano are prohibitive.” This is also the Bolzano noose: to a prison that is in some ways unpresentable is added the reality of an out-of-control cost of living. The Odós in structure viale Venezia It has 16 beds. “In all these years, we have only counted 15 repeat offenders, confirming that the project works”, claim the operators. Odós, found herself yesterday at the Pastoral Center, which has now become the hub for social emergencies. «Change to start again», the title of the conference. Active for 25 years, the service has welcomed 574 people on a residential basis.
Yesterday stories of fear and redemption were told. With the faces and looks of those who, after their punishment, have found their way again. Not all, many. «Never close the door – comments Muser – and never just focus on tightening the penalties. Prison is repelling, and society outside is equally repulsive for many people. All this must affect us.” Anyone who touches it every day, for example, is Nicola Gaetanilegal pedagogical officer of the via Dante structure. He explains the internal layout of the prison: «There is a first ordinary section, a second which is the antechamber of alternative punishments, a third reserved for those who have shown that they are unable to stay out of problems». And inmates come and go from these sections. «It all starts with an interview. And I always try not to look at the card regarding the person in front of me first”, says Gaetani. He wants to hear it first. Then the problems: «When I arrived in Bolzano I found a nineteenth-century prison. They told me you will be the head of the pedagogical office: instead I was alone, my own boss.” It was like this from 2019 until 2022. Then, finally, others arrived. “Now we are a good number.” The figures that serve to understand the prison scenarios that rain down on the outside world: 34 admitted to possible alternative sentences, 25 under house arrest, 25 pursuant to article 21, 10 on semi-freedom.
Listening to Gaetani yesterday, even those who made it: «Without him, no, I wouldn’t be here…». With children and family. Therefore more than a hundred individuals for whom house arrest does not always or almost never mean their own domicile. It is in this mobile context that Odós intervenes. Who yesterday brought together the vast array of those who collaborate in the possible recovery: the diocese, Danilo Tucconi responsible for the homeless, Gaetani, Gottardi, Nicolò Fuccaro (director of the External Criminal Enforcement Office), and the teacher Lub Kolis Summerer. With an emergency: over 70-80% of those who could take advantage of alternative sentences outside prison have difficulty taking advantage of them. Because foreigner,
homeless, or because he lost everything once in cell. This is their prison
everyday. P.CA.