PENITENTIARY. - In the technical sense it is the place where an individual, sentenced by a final judgment, must expiate the penalty imposed upon him. It is therefore bound up with the concept of punishment, whereas preventive detention houses those awaiting criminal proceedings.
The penitentiary, with all the complex life that unfolds around it, is a source of numerous social problems: it may be said that almost all of them are determined by the presence of the individual as a responsible being, endowed with a soul as well as a body, and by the character that the concept of criminal punishment has consequently assumed, especially in more recent times. For the historical evolution of this concept, and for the problems common also to preventive detention, v. CARCERE.
At the basis of a penitentiary system worthy of a civilized and Christian State there must stand a concept of punishment that tends toward the re-education of the convicted person and therefore consists in treatments not contrary to the sense of humanity, while still taking into account the moral responsibility of the human person.
In the so-called Pennsylvania system, the criterion of continuous isolation, by day and by night, was adopted in the most serious cases, while little enthusiasm is shown for the work of detainees. In the so-called Auburn system, also peculiar to certain American states, isolation is limited to the nighttime period and coincides with the attribution of particular importance to the re-educative value of silence, while during the day work in common is permitted. In Europe the Irish system, for example, places great reliance on the prisoner's co-interest in his own re-education, obtained through a gradual system that goes from continuous isolation to nighttime isolation only, with common daytime work and subsequently at institutions with industrial and agricultural organization, up to conditional release, for the most deserving. In Italy, the penitentiary system, still based on the codification of 1930 and on the Regulation of 18 June 1931, is undergoing revision in order to coordinate the entire penal sector with the new constitutional requirements. As in other sectors, a notable gap is evident between legislation and practical implementation, owing to the scarcity of means and to wartime events. In 1949-50 a parliamentary commission of inquiry was appointed, which published a valuable report, issued under the auspices of the Chamber of Deputies.
The principal social problems in this matter may be briefly summarized. First of all, the evolution of penal science and legislation toward adapting the penalty to the individual personalities of the convicted, as in every sound therapeutic technique, demands a perfected and specialized system of education and observation. There follows as a consequence the specialization of penal institutions, both by distinguishing them from institutions of preventive detention and by differentiating them among themselves according to the magnitude of the penalty to be served (life imprisonment, houses of reclusion, houses of arrest), and according to the personal qualities of the passive subjects (houses for minors, for the physically disabled, sanatoria for tubercular patients, houses for habitual and professional offenders, etc.).
Particularly important is the problem of prison architecture; indeed it escapes no one that a rightly understood penalty, in order to achieve its re-educative effect, must be served in environments that positively facilitate its efficacy. Specialized architectural science has made decisive progress in this sector, which awaits widespread practical application. The most recent tendencies, accepted also by Italian legislation, are not favorable to continuous isolation. It in fact ends by developing antisocial feelings in the individual; it should therefore be limited to the most serious cases and to the nighttime period, as a source of precious meditation, and dissociated from the dreariness of gloomy and unhealthy environments. A perfect health-assistance service is also necessary, so that the convicted person may always find himself in the best conditions for enduring the punishment. This requires modern equipment, general and specialist physicians, special houses for the sick, in order to avoid worsenings and contagions. As a preventive measure to this end, and for obvious reasons of humanity, nourishment must be humane and guarantee a sufficient minimum of calories. The variety and wholesomeness of the food is certainly compatible with the requirement that the prisoner should not find in prison conditions of life privileged in comparison with the environment in which he lived.
At the center of the whole penitentiary organization stand those means designed to redeem and re-educate the individual. If it is true that in order to be effective they need a favorable environment, these means, which are called factors of amendment, cannot be confused with it. Already Holy Scripture shows the afflictive character of work (Gen. 3:19); it is moreover a social obligation from which precisely those who have set themselves against society cannot withdraw, and it is a most effective means of combating idleness and the consequent physical and moral depression, as well as of procuring for the penitentiary organization the means it needs, and for the prisoner the satisfaction of contributing to his own maintenance, to his own re-education, to his own return to society. In this regard it is necessary to teach a trade to those who lack one, to enable those already skilled to progress in their own, to avoid physical and moral exploitation, to pay adequate wages, to prepare suitable means and environments. Instruction, a factor of amendment of primary importance, tends to soften the soul of the convicted person, combating ignorance, which is one of the remote causes of evil. Organized schools, prepared and loving teachers, qualifications of study placed on a par with ordinary ones, wholesome and attractive reading, modern pedagogical means, especially for adults, often unaccustomed to the labor of learning, are necessities that impose themselves ever more. Religious assistance and the practices of worship constitute a most important factor of amendment. It would be a fundamental error to replace religious assistance with psychoanalytic and psychological treatments: psychology in fact does not cease to be a psychosomatic science, extending at most to studying the effects of interior manifestations, which are something quite different from the soul and from supernatural life. If one reflects moreover that crime is fundamentally a lack of love of man toward society, and is often caused by the lack of love of society toward man, nothing else, apart from religion and charity, can repair this fundamental defect. Only the minister of God, who in forgiveness represents God himself, can restore lasting light and love. The common prayer of prisoners is the most moving and effective thing one can imagine for their rehabilitation.
The problem of minors constitutes a particular chapter of penal execution. Without considering the preventive means that society must adopt for the better formation of the young (v. PREVENZIONE), it is evident that measures of particular efficacy must tend toward the re-education of minors who indulge in crime. In certain Anglo-Saxon nations the principle of assisted liberty has had notable application, which many hope for also in Italy. In any case, while the penal responsibility of the minor remains firm, penal houses for minors should not have the appearance of a penitentiary, and the penalty should be deprived of all material afflictiveness, assuming an exclusively re-educative character. The specialization of the penalty should assume an absolute character with regard to minors.
A notable social function is performed by all the organizations that concern themselves with post-prison assistance. The effectiveness of the penalty, which is assessed with respect to the achieved reintegration of the convicted person into an honest social life, must be facilitated by helping the convicted person in every way on his journey of return. If society bears its share of responsibility in many of the crimes that are committed, the most perfect of penitentiary systems will never fully achieve its purpose unless it is completed by an effective moral rehabilitation of the social environment.