Mercy and. PENALTY | Betting on the goodness of the human being
A new column to explore some world issues in light of the Jubilee, declining the word “mercy”
The heavy iron key locks yet another metal door with multiple bolts behind us.
Prison police escort us toward the chapel. Even knowing that in a little less than two hours I will be outside again, the feeling is alienating, not at all easy to explain.
It is Jan. 3, 2025, and in the Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi Prison House, Archbishop Pasquale Cascio is about to celebrate the Eucharist in the Jubilee Church, the second one after the Cathedral. I accompany him for the occasion.
A week earlier, it was Pope Francis who crossed the threshold of Rome’s Rebibbia Prison to open the second Holy Door of Holy Year 2025. It was the day on which we remember St. Stephen, the first martyr, who was slaughtered by stoning.
The day after Christmas, the Holy Father passed through the Holy Door on his feet, not in a wheelchair as at St. Peter’s.
Many were puzzled about his choice.
It is common to understand prison as merely a place of detention, a place where we would quickly want to lock up those who have committed more or less serious crimes.
By now, it is customary to publicly call for exemplary punishments and comment on violent events, with a call to lock the offender in a cell and throw away the keys. For the past few years, it has also been news – negative – to see an offender who has served his sentence back at large.
There is nothing more erroneous, to read our Constitution.
The Italian Constitutional Charter provides for prisoner re-education.
Those who offend should always have a chance for recovery and return to society,
once he has served his sentence, free to live his life to the fullest.
But is this really the case?
The scarlet letter of imprisonment is far more obvious than a tattoo-an unmistakable symbol, once upon a time, of having spent the night in a cell-so what improves performance is only recidivism.
In the spring of 2024, the CNEL reports that “as of March 31, 2024, the number of inmates in correctional institutions is 61,049, almost stable since 2008. 31 percent are non-Italian citizens (19,108). Women make up only 4.3 percent. The real crowding rate, which indicates the percentage of people detained in excess of the places actually available, is 119 percent.”
The study also points out the difficulty in preventing recidivism: “6 out of 10 offenders have already been in prison.”
Recidivism could drop with vocational placement.
Although “in Italy 33 percent of prisoners are involved in work activities, only 1 percent of them are employed by private companies and 4 percent by social cooperatives…85 percent are employed by the Penitentiary Administration.”
How can Jubilee change the life of an inmate?
In Spes non confundit, the bull of jubilee indiction, the Pope speaks of the need to eliminate the death penalty.
If even one state were to grant this request, it would already be a victory, since killing for punishment can never lead to the complete redemption of a prisoner.
We Italians have known about the absurdity of the death penalty since the time of Cesare Beccaria, the grandfather of Alessandro Manzoni.
If one is not “merciful,” how can one become merciful?
Sometimes one must try, bet on the goodness of the human being.
Of course, one does not always succeed. But how often does each of us promise not to repeat a given mistake again, only to find ourselves some time later in the same condition?
The work of female volunteers alleviates in no small measure the situation in our prisons, which is difficult for both inmates and officers.
Meanwhile, something is moving.
Since 2022, the so-called Cartabia Reform, named after the then Minister of Justice, has been in effect.
The novelty lies in introducing restorative justice pathways. A complex way to mend the rift created between offender, victim and wounded community.
It may seem like yet another futile attempt, the child of good intentions;
instead, it can really mark a change of pace.
I myself noticed this, several years ago now, when I attended a public meeting where Agnese Moro, daughter of statesman Aldo (kidnapped and killed by the Red Brigades in 1978) and terrorist Adriana Faranda, a member of the Roman R.B. column who played an important role during the Moro kidnapping but opposed the assassination of the D.C. president, were seated behind the same table.
Anyone can make mistakes in life. In his homily at Rebibbia we are reminded of this by the Pontiff, who is sensitive to the subject, so much so that he offered it entirely at arm’s length. “Closed hearts, hard hearts, do not help one to live,” he states.
“Therefore, the grace of a Jubilee is to open wide, to open hearts to hope.”
Francesco Di Sibio
Head of Social Communications Office
Archdiocese of Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi-Conza-Nusco-Bisaccia
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