Tag: Criminology

“Puramente casuale”: Italian Prison Films and the 1975 Carceral Reform

Author di Matteo Brera

Films are privileged, albeit not highly scientific, media through which the public’s ideas “about the nature of crime” are shaped, and perceptions of audiences on crime and its ‘mechanics’ are altered by mediatised images of criminal activities and their impact on society[1]. This is the consequence of what Surette calls “the social construction of reality”[2]; indeed, according to the American penologist, when studying the intertwining of crime, criminal justice and the media, people obtain knowledge from the fictional picture of the world that media elaborate and propose to them. Their acts thus tend to be based on these artificial representations)[3].

The construction of reality is not a unidirectional (media to the public) process but is also informed by popular culture and personal experiences or by those made, told, and accounted for by “significant others”[4]; in general, it is undeniable that media representations – and especially fictional images of crime – inform to a certain degree our view of the world[5].

When it comes to specialised fields, problems and topics, however, the impact of direct and indirect personal experiences plays a much lesser role, and this certainly applies to the “afterlives” of crime, such as punishment and imprisonment. One aspect of the criminal justice system that remains somehow quantitatively secluded from the eyes of the public – at least if we compare it to the more numerous courtrooms and police stations that appear regularly in news reports, films and TV series, is the prison[6]. The world of carceral institutions has recently been studied with more and more impetus from a variety of perspectives, and the surge of “real life” documentaries streamed by on-demand platforms including Netflix (e.g. World’s Toughest Prisons), TV series such as Orange is the New Black (2013-2019), which has been capable of generating its own niche academic field, and the success of blockbusters such as Cape Fear (1991), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Con Air (1997) has triggered and keep triggering, on the one hand, a strong and often voyeuristic public interest in real life inside prisons through the observation of its fictional representation; on the other, it has attracted – and attracts – interest from academics as a means to expand the criminological and critical tools available to scholars for the analysis of sociology of punishment.

Media discourse and representation of crime influence mainstream culture to the point of claiming their own place beside scholarly approaches to crime as a form of popular criminology able not only to study crime films[7], but also to render a picture of society. In this respect, films can reflect, interpret, and contribute to shaping society, and prison films, in particular, can shape popular culture and are a receptacle of the sociological signs that their directors perceive in the current political discourse on crime[8].

Scholars have often overlooked, at least in the Italian context, the strong connections that fictional representations of crime have had with the historical and ongoing debates on the dire need to reform an obsolete and ever-ageing penal system. While the impact is a variable rather difficult to measure, it is indeed possible to verify to what extent films produced and screened during the years leading to an important milestone in the penal changes such as the carceral reform of 1975 (Legge n. 354, 19 luglio 1975) mirrored and condemned the long-standing flaws of carceral institutions heavily connoted by positivistic approaches to crime and a fascist ideology of punishment.

In this paper, I focus on the Italian case to demonstrate that cinematic representations of incarceration – whether of dramatic or comic register – written in a specific historical context mirror the ongoing penal debates while also positioning themselves as critical voices highlighting flaws in the social system. I will concentrate my analysis on three films: Damiano Damiani’s L’istruttoria è chiusa, dimentichi (1971), loosely inspired by Leros Pittoni’s Tante Sbarre (Milan, Mursia, 1970), the cinematic critique of preventative incarceration as it emerges from Nanni Loy’s Detenuto in attesa di Giudizio (1971) and the caustic nonsensical representation of punishment in Farfallon (Riccardo Pazzaglia 1974), a parody of yet another popular historical drama, Franklin J Schaffner’s Papillon (1972).

Following a necessary historical contextualisation and discussion of the legislative changes that affected the penitentiary in Italy and the administration of punishment and rehabilitation of inmates from post-Unification to the mid-Seventies, I will frame the production of the selected movies within the penal transformations brought to the Italian criminal justice system by the comprehensive carceral reform of 1975, which promised a radical transformation of the penitentiary and its role in the retributive penal system of Italy in the postwar period by putting the inmate at the centre of penal changes[9].

I will thus provide an interpretation of the films as mirrors and interpreters of the political, cultural, and sociological debates around imprisonment, crime control and rehabilitation of offenders that impacted heavily Italian society during the complex historical period of socio-political turmoil and terrorism that spanned from the very end of the Sixties to the early Eighties (Anni di piombo). Finally, I argue that an open approach to a different number of genres that can serve as sources for historical and criminological analyses may help rectify much-entrenched perspectives and sustain the efforts of leading scholars in cinema studies when it comes to broadening the canon to include films able to offer themselves as sources for political and sociological commentary[10].

From the Rules of 1931 to the Reform of 1975: Punishment and Rehabilitation in the Italian Criminal Justice System

On 26 July 1975, when the law n. 354/75 – the Norme sull’ordinamento penitenziario e sulla esecuzione delle misure privative e limitative della libertà [Rules on the penitentiary system and the enforcement of measures to deprive and restrict freedom][11] – was passed by the Italian parliament, the Fascist penal rules of 1931 were still fully in force. The principles that informed Benito Mussolini’s carceral system, designed by the Ministry of Justice Alfredo Rocco, were essentially the deprivation of liberty and the application of physical pain as instruments to re-educate and rehabilitate the convicts[12]. Prisons were conceived as impenetrable and isolated institutions to be completely detached from the rest of society[13]. A vertical and centralised bureaucratic apparatus and guards rigidly subordinated to a set of stringent and military-like guidelines and protocols exercised daily acts of violence on inmates, in breach of the most elementary rules of respect of human dignity.

Rocco devised the norms of 1931 on the foundations provided by the two first set of rules governing the penitentiaries in monarchic Italy, namely the ones approved by Victor Emmanuel II right after the Unification on January 13, 1862 (in force in every correctional institution of Italy except for the Tuscan provinces) and the one signed by then Minister of Justice Giuseppe Zanardelli in 1891.

The rules of 1862 introduced in Italy the Auburn system, based on the nocturnal separation of inmates and a daily and silent communal work routine. In addition, the new set of regulations borrowed from the Tuscan system allowed inmates to access retributed work opportunities within the penitentiary only after a period of segregation commensurate with the offence committed.

Article 4 of the Rules sanctioned the compulsory nature of labour and attributed to the warden the assignation of roles and activities, preferably respecting the inmates’ attitudes (art. 261)[14]. This set of norms also contemplated rewards, including the possibility for particularly well-behaved inmates to receive additional visits from relatives, the purchase of winter clothes and even a significant reduction of time to be served and, in some cases, the royal pardon (art. 368).

The norms promulgated by Zanardelli in 1891, together with the new penal code (1890), were still primarily rooted in positivistic principles and restated the central role of convicts’ labour in line with the underlying philosophy of the Italian retributive penal system that the Minister strongly lobbied for and supported in its promulgation[15]. Zanardelli’s rules fundamentally sought to “re-educate” convicted offenders through the expiation of their guilt to be achieved through deprivations of personal freedom and physical pain. Convicts’ work was thus conceived by Zanardelli (art. 276) as a necessary element of rehabilitation, and every inmate was compelled to carry out some kind of task within the penitentiary based on the severity of the offence[16]. Furthermore, the 1891 rules maintained well alive the link between the rewards’ system and the intrinsic punitive nature of the carceral system, since only through labour and exceptional industriousness and diligence inmates could gain enough funds (via ordinary and extraordinary rewards) to factually purchase their survival in prison[17].

Presenting the new Rules of 1931 (Regio Decreto 787) in the first issue of the renewed Rivista di Diritto Penitenziario, Giovanni Novelli, then «Direttore generale degli Istituti di Prevenzione e Pena», strongly advocated for the innovative nature of the newly promulgated document: «A set of rules that fundamentally contained a series of norms about the conduct of inmates now follows a number of guidelines that include a comprehensive discipline of the execution of punishment and detention»[18].

The ideological foundations of these measures largely rested on the same philosophy of punishment that had characterised the legislation on the subject since the unification of Italy and which saw deprivation of personal freedom and physical suffering as the means to re-educate offenders through repentance.

Even more than in the past, the prison was conceived as an impenetrable space, often located in impervious and inaccessible places and, when not isolated from the urban landscape, efficiently separated from it and from free society by several feet of concrete and steel.

While the inside of prisons was ruled by a militarised corp of often violent and uncaring «agenti di custodia» [custodial guards] who acted as the armed wing of the administration by dispensing daily doses of physical punishment, degradation and dehumanisation of inmates, isolation from the external world was enacted through a set of strict limitations including those on visits of and correspondence with relatives, which were linked to the system of rewards and punishments established by the legislator. An increasingly frequent resorting to the isolation of particularly disruptive or “dangerous” inmates also became the norm in fascist prisons. At the same time, visits to any penitentiary by people outside the administration of justice were limited to a list of personalities and practically made impossible for anyone else.

The penitentiary system outlined by the 1931 regulations was structured around the subtle equilibrium of punishments and privileges, as well as daily practices of violence, the unavoidable adherence to rules, and constant violations of the most elementary norms to preserve the dignity of individuals[19].

However, as coercive as it was, the system in place never really managed to govern a constellation of penal institutions systematically overcrowded and dilapidated. The authorities’ inability to control the revolts that frequently flared up over time was increasingly put under severe and attentive scrutiny from the media, which elicited a growing interest from the public and politicians alike.

The documentary Dentro il carcere (1970), for instance, was significantly written by Emilio Sanna (one of the screenwriters of Detenuto in attesa di giudizio (1971), a film that will be discussed later in this essay) and screened by the Italian national broadcasting service (R.A.I.) following a study of the dramatic situation of the carceral system of the Peninsula[20].

While attempts were made to sensitise public opinion on the chronic overcrowding of Italian prisons and the appalling welfare conditions of inmates, political and legislative initiatives to change an evidently flawed penitentiary system failed miserably, and in 1969 riots once again exploded in several facilities across Italy[21].

The spirit of the 1975 reform was the enactment of article 27 of the 1948 Italian Constitution, which embraces the humanisation of punishment. According to the third subsection of art. 27, punishment must not consist of practices that contravene the shared sense of humanity and must aim to rehabilitate the offender[22]. The new legislation focused on the detainees’ human nature, dignity, and right to be treated with respect[23]. At least on paper, the new set of rules intended to provide a much-needed and longed-for constitutional enactment that has been subsequently modified and ameliorated by the Legge Gozzini (1986) and promised to be further improved. However, the legislator’s response has been slow after attempting to overhaul the institute of imprisonment and penal procedure through the poorly implemented “Riforma Orlando” (2018)[24].

The 1975 reform of the Italian prison system is rightly seen as a significant step forward as far as the modernisation of Italian criminal procedure and carceral institutions is concerned. Intellectuals, including writers and directors, accompanied the long road to the approval of the new legislation. In the following sections of this essay, I will show how prison films of opposite registers – dramatic and parodistic/satirical – indirectly intervened in the debate, thus depicting the obsolete conditions of the Italian criminal justice system and positioning Italian crime cinema in a “progressist” position compared to some of its international counterparts.

The case is closed (?) Preventative Imprisonment, Violence and Political Corruption

Damiano Damiani was inspired for L’istruttoria è chiusa: dimentichi, by the book Tante sbarre by Leros Pittoni (1970). The novel hints at the many social and psychological obstacles encountered by an engineer during his short spell in prison due to a miscarriage of justice. Pittoni’s novel is not an isolated case in the Italian literary landscape of the early Seventies, as numerous memoirs were published on the back of blatant failures of the criminal justice system, made of never-ending and Kafkaesque mistakes in the phases of the investigation leading to weeks if not months of unjust incarceration “awaiting trial” for a crime that often never occurred beyond any reasonable doubt.

Memoirs and more or less fictional recollections published at the time insisted in particular on the degrading practices that the carceral rules not only allowed but openly embraced to control better inmates reduced to matriculation numbers and deprived of any remainder of their lives as free men. Pierre Clementi, whose rising star as an actor was derailed in 1972 after he was sentenced to prison for allegedly possessing and using drugs, was yet another victim of the flawed Italian criminal justice system. Due to a lack of substantial evidence, he was released after 17 months in prison. He recollected his shattering and disturbing experience of the dehumanising Italian penitentiary as «founded on repression» and «rules, whose only objective is the total destruction of the convict»[25].

In June 1970, the similar devastating effects of preventative incarceration on individuals charged with a crime were publicly exposed by the Hit Parade and Studio Uno host Lelio Luttazzi, who was implicated by mistake in a case of alleged drug dealing with fellow TV personality and cinema star Walter Chiari. A misinterpreted phone conversation between the two resulted in a 27-day incarceration for Luttazzi, who was at the peak of his career and thus the victim of a reputational battering in the media. Once released because «il fatto non sussiste» [the fact does not subsist] (the amplest form of acquittal in Italian criminal law), Luttazzi was practically forced to retire, unable as he was to recover from such traumatic experience, which he depicts with bleak tones in Operazione Montecristo (1971), his memoir from the prison. In his book, which would be one of the sources of inspiration for Alberto Sordi and Sergio Amidei in the elaboration of the subject for Detenuto in attesa di giudizio (1971), Luttazzi tries unsuccessfully to deal with the «Great Anger» [La gran rabbia] that consumes him, and makes him look at the world after his unjust incarceration with an unutterably bleak negativity that even brings out suicidal thoughts and casts doubts onto his once unshakable faith:

The necrosis that irradiates from all my soul contaminates the air that I breath […] the Creation seems an enemy to me, and the whole universe horrid’. God is first and foremost desire of God. And I have lost it. They have slaughtered my soul, and this is the Great Delict of which those who are responsible for will be called to account for their actions[26].

Both the protagonists of Detenuto in attesa di Giudizio and L’istruttoria è chiusa, dimentichi are, like Luttazzi, members of that bourgeoisie that «believed in the system» and were not «one of the many protesters of the system who work to overthrow it» as maintained by Giuseppe Berto in the preface to Operazione Montecristo[27]. Thus, the idea that everyone could end up in the same situation as young engineer Vanzi (L’Istruttoria) or the up and coming, respected, and perfectly integrated Italian emigrant in Sweden who has made a name for himself in the construction business – Giuseppe Di Noi (Detenuto) – had a great impact on the public.

Both films, in particular Loy’s, play on the individuals’ fear of becoming a deviant after perturbing the stability of a societal order[28]. This is subtly present in the words of Di Noi when he is asked to follow a border officer to run a merely formal check. Dissimulating his nervousness before leaving the car, he tells his wife Ingrid: «let’s hope they are not wanting to muzzle the dog!» (Detenuto: 7’ .20”). While he is giggling anxiously, he covers his mouth and nose with his open right hand so as to mimic a set of bars before his face[29].

Di Noi’s worries are soon confirmed as his own freedom is restrained, and not a journey through the beauties of Italy awaits him, but a peregrination from one penitentiary to another as he is slowly but inexorably pushed by the judicial system into the category of the deviant. Among the numerous reproaches he receives from the guards, two physical acts are central to his assimilation into this new social group: the fingerprint-taking and the strip-searching ceremonies. Di Noi first realises, as his hands get permanently stained with black ink, that the system is now labelling him as a criminal: «What am I, now, a delinquent!? I am a respectable person!»; he then tries to rebel against an invasive, degrading and and, as the officer prepares to carry out an invasive rectal inspection: «What do you think you’ll find up there, a bomb!?»[30].

The critics of the time did not regard Detenuto in attesa di giudizio as a film charged with any kind of political commitment, but merely a film «with Alberto Sordi»[31]; on the contrary, Damiani’s L’istruttoria è chiusa, dimentichi was immediately perceived by militant critics as a socially committed work, even able to transcend the genre within which it was conceived:

This is not a prison film, although it shows even more as is, subhuman, receptacle of vices and sorrow, instead of redemption, or even just punishment; it is above all a film about the unjust differences between classes, differences that also remain between inmates within a prison[32].

In Damiani’s film, young and bright engineer Vanzi is incarcerated awaiting trial after being accused of an alleged culpable hit-and-run homicide. Life in prison, the presence of violent inmates, the unreasonable inflexibility of rules and the repressive methods of the guards soon become unbearable for him. A victim of the illiberal institution of preventative detention “awaiting” a trial that, due to the lengthiness of the Italian penal system, is going to take quite some time, Vanzi is labelled by a fellow inmate as “the living proof of the absurdity of [the] judicial system”[33].

For a while, the protagonist manages to use his financial resources to corrupt officers and even the prison doctor, thus ensuring relocation to a better cell, thanks to the intervention of Rosa, a Mafia associate in custody on behalf of an influential personality whose identity remains mysterious. Vanzi’s new cellmate is Pesenti, a key witness in a trial against political echelons who tried to cover up a dam failure that killed over 1000 people. Pesenti is wanted dead by the political and mafioso collaboration, and Vanzi becomes, unwillingly, a part of a scheme to kill him.

Five inmates attack Pesenti and kill him at night in his and Vanzi’s cell, simulating a suicide. Vanzi witnesses the murder but is blackmailed by a prison officer and chooses to lie to the prosecutor who is investigating the case to safeguard his life and, ultimately, his standing within the prison to be able to maintain his status once he leaves the penitentiary. Vanzi, now a part of the corrupt carceral world, realises that he must obey to be set free and testifies accordingly. He is immediately released, and, shaking his hand, the warden congratulates him and patronisingly asks him to «forget» a merely unfortunate «adventure».

Damiani’s film has a robust sense of popular spectacle and heavily links his characters’ vicissitudes with Italian contemporary and historical political controversies, thus situating itself in a strongly militant position. For instance, the trial in which Pesenti is a key witness is a clear reference to the collapse of the Vajont dam (1963). This scandal destroyed the lives of thousands and razed to the ground the village of Longarone (Belluno). The Vajont case exposed the widespread corruption of the political structure that survived unscathed the Ventennio and projected its lethal effects on contemporary society. It still constitutes a direct link between politics and corruption at the expense of citizens in popular imagery[34].

L’istruttoria è chiusa, dimentichi depicts prisons as antiquated and still profoundly fascistised institutions where “psychiatric visits” are used to incapacitate rebellious inmates and asylums are the ultimate punishment in case of failure of solitary confinement as a measure to discipline riotous individuals. Damiani denounces the urgent necessity of carceral reforms, and in doing so, he presents the prison as a symbolic microcosm of “free” Italy, a country ruled by discrimination kept alive by the obsessive presence of organised crime[35].

The strict adherence of the prison to the never-abandoned fascist model is underlined again by Damiani while filming the sequence of the riot, where the inmates, crowding the dark and claustrophobic spaces of the prison, welcome the public speech of the chief of the guards, who is called hierarchically «il superiore» [the superior], shouting «Duce! Duce! Duce!». This goes beyond the mere satirical invective intended by the inmates in the film and identifies directly, in the eyes of the director, the authoritarianism of the prison system designed by Mussolini’s regime as a reincarnation of Fascism[36].

Damiani conveys an overarching moralising message about the infiltration of mafia-like mechanisms and dynamics in every cog in the complex machinery of criminal justice, as it is customary for his film production of the Seventies characterised by a constant tension between the focus on the historical context, a multiform yet solid political commitment aimed at denouncing the flaws of a corrupted system of power[37].

Most importantly, however, both films crudely put under the spotlight of current affairs and, as far as we are concerned, history, the long-standing issue of the misuse of preventive incarceration in the Italian criminal justice system and its potentially devastating effects not only on the never-ending plague of overcrowding but also on inmates, their mental health and constitutional rights.

Without wandering into matters that are documented with painful precision by, among others, the NGO Antigone in its yearly reports and incessant yet less than fruitful parliamentary works, about a thousand people are imprisoned every year in Italy and later turn out to be innocent. Italy is the fifth country in the European Union with the highest rate of prisoners in pre-trial detention, meaning that 31% of the carceral population is “awaiting trial”; roughly one prisoner in every three is technically innocent yet subject to the penitentiary regime[38].

As represented in the selected literary and cinematic examples, preventive detention destroys the lives of those affected. It not only causes serious reputational damage, subjecting them to a shocking experience, but it has serious consequences on the professional sphere as denounced by the memoirs by Clementi and Luttazzi, whose imprisonment factually constituted a devastating turning point for their lives[39].

All the experiences emerging from the written accounts of imprisonment or the fictional ones of Vanzi and Di Noi tell a story of dramatic impact on families and, indirectly, suggest how a malfunctioning machinery of justice represents both a human and an economic burden for a country already having to deal with dilapidated structures that oftentimes fall well below the minimal hygienic standards. A recent document presented to the Cabinet presided over by Giorgia Meloni, promised to hold the Italian Government accountable for the over 30.000 cases of unjust incarceration recorded in Italian prisons from 1992 to 2024, which cost almost 894 million euros in compensation[40].

Fictional accounts of prison experience published and screened in Italy in the years leading to the 1975 reform convey in unison the same message: pre-trial detention, with respect to the final sentencing and often concerning any non-definitive intermediate sentence, is a practice that is abused. In Italy, pre-trial imprisonment has been transformed into a true anticipatory form of punishment from its original function as an emergency judicial tool, in open violation of the constitutional principle of the presumption of innocence. Thus, it has forced thousands of women and men accused of minor crimes, even later acquitted, to experience the humiliation of prison before having the right to a just trial[41].

“Vigilando deridere”: Satire and Italian Peculiar Institutions[42]

The quite radical politicisation of Italian society in the Sixties and the Seventies suggests we look at satirical and comic filmic productions to verify how such interest in politics reverberates onto cinema and how satirical films absorbed elements of the debate around the dire need to reform the ancient, dysfunctional, and violent Italian carceral system[43]. And try to verify their capability to act as critical voices of the system in place in the limited space left within this paper.

In 1974, Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia impersonated goofy caricatures of Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman in Farfallon (1974) and this niche film and the two convicts in Riccardo Pazzaglia’s work – one a Sicilian pastry chef (Farfallon, C. Ingrassia) who is jailed for unsuccessfully trying to kill his unfaithful wife, the other a slimy and treacherous nobleman (F. Franchi) who has been jailed for bribery – go through a series of surreal escapades and are transferred from prison to prison because of the strangest series of events.

Under the apparently shallow screenplay, overflowing with base sexual innuendos and nonsensical exchanges between the two protagonists and the improbable gang of prison guards, wardens and fellow convicts, the film is a barrage of open and harsh criticism of the Italian penal system and the societal norms within which such decrepit institution has thrived from Fascism until the Seventies.

During his first dialogue with Farfallon in the belly of a cruise ship where the convicts are being taken to the penitentiary of Naples, the Baron di Vistacorta tells his soon-to-become comrade-in-shackles the reasons for his own incarceration. The Baron is detained for partaking in «that famous society for the construction of the Messina Strait bridge» [quella famosa società per la costruzione del ponte sullo Stretto di Messina][44]. Similarly to the Vajont disaster mentioned in Damiani’s film, a (mostly financial) disaster waiting to happen, such as the construction of a road bridge connecting Sicily with Calabria, is referred to as the emblematic money-making venture that the «ingannapopolo» (the politicians) conceived to satisfy their greed and that of few selected affiliates, such as the ever-cheery and carefree Baron. In a rather grossly didascalic manner, Pazzaglia exhibits a self-evident metaphor of the fraudulent intents of the nobleman through the suppository-shaped container of «unmilionetrecentomilalire» [one million and three hundred thousand lira] that Farfallon is asked to “hide” by making good use of a part of his body he shows not to be particularly familiar with[45].

One failed evasion attempt after another brings Farfallon back to the Baron to the «Carcere Modello di Civitavetula», where the convict arrives in the back of a freezer van delivering meat to the institution after he tried without success to complete his mission of killing his unfaithful wife[46].

Unlike the original American production, the protagonists find themselves in a «carcere permissivo» [permissive prison], in which inmates are fingerprinted using Swiss chocolate so that they can find pleasure in licking their fingers and take artistic and personalised mugshots dressed up as pilots or Venetian gondoliers.

In the words of the female and reassuring warden, the Italian carceral system so familiar to the inmates is made of «prisons where convicts are kept in a state of perennial subjection and violence that prevents any proper rehabilitation»[47]. In one of the surreal exchanges with the Farfallon and the Baron, she states that the institution she directs instead embodies the motto of the Italian carceral law, «Vigilando redimere» [Rehabilitate through vigilance]. In a caustic comeback, Farfallon replies that he had always thought the official motto of the correctional facilities in which he repeatedly sojourned in the past was instead «Vigilando deridere» [Rehabilitate through laugh/derision][48].

In this overly peculiar institution, corporal punishments have never been used; however, shackle beds are still eerily stored in the cellar, and it will be by tricking the warden into getting secured to one of them to demonstrate how they used to work that Farfallon and the Baron will try to flee again. It is exactly when she realises that someone is trying to escape that the warden starts reciting in a trance-like state article 151 of the 1931 carceral regulations, namely the one disciplining punishment in case of attempted evasion. The message conveyed by the director cannot be clearer, as the intrinsic foundations of the penitentiary are always the same, and even in an apparently liberal institution where men and women are allowed to live in the same cell, breaches of the rules will be severely punished.

Indeed, as soon as they emerge just outside of Rome’s Coliseum from the catacombs through which they managed to escape thanks to the providential instructions of St Peter, the two escapees are spotted by some Swiss guards (the same who had already arrested Farfallon in the past) and put in shackles once again[49].

The fortune of Farfallon and his associate changes for the worse as they are now shipped to a «Colonia Penale Agricola» [Penal Agricultural Colony] that is not only a parody of Papillon’s Devil’s Island but also a strong attack on fascist conventions (including the beleaguered practices of the confino [exile] to quash political dissent) and principles still informing the Italian prison system in 1974 and yet another peculiar institution within the complex Italian carceral landscape.

The penal colony where Farfallon and the Baron are reclused is said to be located in «Chianosa», a far too clear reference to the maximum-security penitentiary of Pianosa, in the Tuscan Archipelago. The penal colony of Pianosa was established in 1856 by Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, because it was considered a perfect place to isolate, segregate, and oversee detainees. In 1861, when Italy was unified, there were 149 prisoners on the island. In 1864, a structure able to contain 350 prisoners was built, and a few years later, in 1872, the island was divided into farms organising the inmates as small communities. In 1880, the carceral population reached 960 units. During the interwar period, the island was used by the fascist government as an island prison mostly between 1931 and 1935 and Sandro Pertini, later President of the Italian Republic, was imprisoned there for political reasons in 1932[50].

The penal colony thus found a new lease of life thanks to General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, who decided to reopen the maximum-security prison on the island in the aftermath of the assassination of magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino between 1992 and 1993. The remaining population of the island was subsequently evacuated, and the old fort started housing, at first, prisoners sentenced for terrorism-related crimes, and then dangerous Mafia affiliates committed to the special “41 bis” maximum security regime.

This new situation transformed Pianosa into a fortress, inaccessible to everyone, with the Agrippa section in turn separated from the rest of the island; Pianosa was monitored day and night by custodial agents, Carabinieri and State Police, and very strict bans on overflight and navigation in the surrounding waters were established.

This state of emergency lasted until July 1997, when the last mafia prisoner was transferred from the island to other places of confinement on the continent, and the Pianosa prison was shut down, this time for good, in August 1999.

In the film, the director of the work camp (Mario Carotenuto) is a stereotypical figure, half fascist guard, half plantation owner who is carried around in a palanquin by convicts/slaves and professes his loyalty to laws introduced back in 1891 (hinting at the Zanardelli code) and stresses the importance for inmates to follow those strictly. Contrarily to the warden of the permissive institution, he prohibits any reference to rehabilitation and reintegration in the community. He even bemoans the impossibility of implementing capital punishment because it is “still” illegal; however, he takes pride in asserting that the guillotine standing out in the centre of the courtyard will cut off any unlikely rioter’s masculinity if needed, namely if anyone attempted to escape. The reference to deprivation of masculinity also suggests a rather blunt deconstruction of the «overcoded» image of the male hero in favour of a de-heroization of characters, which is common in parodic films such as Farfallon[51].

In the colony, the Baron and Farfallon experience all sorts of degrading experiences, although always shrouded in nonsense. First, one of the guards, longing for his home countryside, orders the two to mimic an ox’s sound while ploughing a field; then, they are made to play soccer while being in shackles with a ball and chain. Finally, they receive 7 years of solitary confinement for being tricked by the warden’s wife and sister-in-law, who accuse them of sexual assault.

Unlike Giuseppe Di Noi in Detenuto in attesa di giudizio, the two inmates are not completely broken by isolation. Instead, they look hallucinated yet still very much able to joke with one another about “looking good” as a guard opens the door for them and see them out: «siete liberi di tornare all’ergastolo» [you are free to go back to your life-in-prison sentence][52].

The mockery of structural limits of the Italian penal system wittingly focuses in Farfallon on peculiar forms of punishment and mass incarceration, one (the permissive model) so ridiculously and sadly utopian in the eyes of the director, the other (the penal colony) surreally yet far too similar to the widespread Italian carceral reality of the Seventies, still permeated by fascist ideology of punishment and violence.

Conclusions

The brief analysis of the selected films, intentionally taken from the distant poles of the genre spectrum, suggests first and foremost that it is both possible and productive to continue to rectify an entrenched scholarly approach that assumes only engagé or auteur cinema as possible historical sources by offering political or sociological commentary. The study of movies that would normally fall out of the canonical “political” or “civil” Italian cinema of the Seventies allows us to formulate some general and preliminary conclusions on the “utility” of prison films for the policy-making process in the Italian socio-political context before the carceral reform of 1975.

Although different in many respects and characterised by their own aesthetic patterns, L’istruttoria è chiusa: dimentichi, Detenuto in attesa di giudizio, and Farfallon are all but «locked in old formulas», as many prison films screened before and after them[53]. Their authenticity does not rest, for instance, in claims of depicting a fictionalised account of an actual event. All three directors assert in their films that they are giving or have given a completely fictional description of facts and people and that any reference to real events is «puramente casuale» [purely fortuitous]. However, even under the satirical and apparently light-heartedness of Farfallon, references to precise historical rooting of very much present flaws of the Italian penal system are clearly exposed. Even nonsense and comedy prove to be a formidable testbed to interrogate the «collective perception of justice» as it stems and is filtered through the news and the public discourse[54]. Furthermore, reading such films and the many more produced in Italy during the same years in context with memoirs and other cultural products would most certainly enable a broadening of the canon to be studied to verify the interrelationship between history (and, in this case, also the sociology of crime, punishment, and violence) literature and cinema studies.

Compared to more famous blockbuster movies on imprisonment of the following decades, such as The Shawshank Redemption (1994), in which a cathartic ending reassures the public of the successful actions of the hero, the evil nature of wardens and guards, and the triumphant role of justice, Italian prison films of the Seventies try to isolate and highlight the main defects of the penal and prison system (and society at large), albeit with the limits of dramatisation and semantic transformation imposed by the cinematic medium.

These films went somehow “upstream” and, instead of flatly representing the carceral industrial complex and proposing a «generic imposition of the meaning of prison»[55], they played a meaningful part in critiquing the limit of functionalism and the creation of deviancy in society, denouncing the appalling limits of an ancient and obsolete carceral world, rules and procedures, and, most importantly, informing the public of what needed changed in the carceral system of Italy in the crucial years that led to its partial but still significant reformation[56].

References

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Popular Culture, Crime, and Justice, edited by F. Y. Bailey e D. C. Hale, Belmont, CA, Wadsworth, 1998;

J. Bennett, Reel life after prison: Repression and reform in films about release from prison, in «The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice», n. 55, 4, 2010, pp. 353-68;

Id., The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The Media in Prison Films, in «The Howard Journal», n. 45, 2, 2006, pp. 97-115;

N. Cantor, The New Prison Program of Italy, in «Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology», n. 26, 2, 1935, pp. 216-27;

D. Cheatwood, Films about Adult, Male, Civilian Prisons: 1929-1995, in Popular Culture, Crime, and Justice, edited by F. Y. Bailey e D. C. Hale, Belmont, CA, Wadsworth, 1998, pp. 209-31;

P. Clementi, Pensieri dal carcere [1973], Fagnano Alto, il Sirente, 2007;

Id., Carcere italiano, Milan, Il Formichiere, 1973;

Costituzione italiana. Nuova edizione, introduzione di A. Ambrosini, Torino, Einaudi, 2010;

S. De Angelis e S. Torge, La realtà invisibile: Breve storia del diritto penitenziario dagli Stati preunitari ad oggi, in Momenti di storia della giustizia. Materiali di un seminario, a cura di L. Pace, S. Santucci, e G. Serges, Roma, Aracne, 2011, pp. 9-35;

A. Della Bella, Riforma Orlando. La delega in materia di ordinamento penitenziario, in «Diritto Penale Contemporaneo», 6, 2017, pp. 250-52;

E. Durkheim, The Rules of the Sociological Method [1895], Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1938;

J. Foot, The tale of San Vittore. Prisons, Politics, Crime and Fascism in Milan, 1943–1946, in «Modern Italy», n. 3, 1, 1998, pp. 25-48;

J. Fiske, Media Matters: Race and Gender in US Politics, Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press, 1996;

R. M. Freeman, Public Perceptions and Corrections. Correctional Officers as Smug Hacks, in

A. Gambardella, Le colonie penali nell’Arcipelago Toscano fra l’Ottocento e il Novecento, Empoli, Ibiskos Ulivieri Edizioni, 2006;

G. Gambetti, L’istruttoria è chiusa: dimentichi di Damiano Damiani, in «Cineforum», 110-111, 1971;

V. Gammino, La Scuola Positiva ed il nuovo Codice Penale (1891), Eboli, Sparano, 1891;

D. Garland, Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2012;

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L. Luttazzi, Operazione Montecristo, Milano, Mursia, 1970;

Giustizia penale e ordine in Italia tra Otto e Novecento, a cura di L. Martone, Napoli, Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1996;

P. Martinelli, Suprema Corte di Cassazione, Sezione IV penale; sentenza 25 marzo 1971; Pres. Rosso P., Est. Bonadonna, P. M. Lapiccirella (concl. parz. diff.); ric. Biadene ed altri, in «Il Foro Italiano», vol. 94, n. 12, 1971, pp. 717-52;

P. Mason, Prison Decayed: Cinematic Penal Discourse and Populism 1995-2005, in «Social Semiotics», 16, 4, 2006, pp. 607-26;

P. Mason, The screen machine: cinematic representations of prison, in Criminal Visions. Media Representations of Crime and Justice, edited by P. Mason, Cullompton, Willan, 2003, pp. 290-309;

F. Mele, Le isole sono nate fatte per luoghi di pena. Pianosa e le colonie penali agricole nell’Italia dell’Ottocento, in «Materiali per una storia della cultura giuridica», XXVI, n. 2, 1996, pp. 359-81;

A. Minuz, Giustizia, cinema politico e ideologia italiana. Due film a confronto: Detenuto in attesa di giudizio e In nome del popolo italiano, in In nome della legge. La giustizia nel cinema italiano, a cura di G. Vitiello, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2013, pp. 65-81;

E. Morreale, Damiani professionista del mafia movie, in Damiano Damiani. Politica di un autore, a cura di C. Uva, Roma, Bulzoni, 2014, pp. 45-54;

G. Neppi Modona, La parabola storica delle colonie penali, in Le colonie penali nell’Europa dell’Ottocento, a cura di M. Da Passano, Roma, Carocci Editore, 2004, pp. 11-16;

G. Novelli, Presentazione, in «Rivista di diritto penitenziario» 1, 1931, pp. 1-2;

Id., II nuovo regolamento per gli istituti di prevenzione e di pena, in «Rivista di diritto penitenziario», 1, 1931, pp. 518-49;

A. O’Leary, Italian cinema and the ‘anni di piombo, in «Journal of European Studies», 40, 3, 2010, pp. 243-57;

C. G. O’Rawe, S. Culhane, D. Hipkins, D. Treveri Gennari, S. Dibeltulo, Italian Cinema Audiences. Histories and Memories of Cinema-going in Post-war Italy, London-New York, Bloomsbury, 2020;

S. O’Sullivan, Representations of Prison in Nineties Hollywood Cinema. From Con Air to The Shawshank Redemption, in «The Howard Journal» 40, 4, 2001, pp. 317-34;

A. Pezzotta, Regia Damiano Damiani, Pordenone, Cinemazero, 2004;

N. Rafter, Crime, film and criminology. Recent sex-crime movies, in «Theoretical Criminology», 11, 3, 2007, pp. 403-20;

Id., Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society. 2nd ed., New York, NY, Oxford University Press, 2006;

Regolamento per gli istituti di prevenzione e di pena. Relazione e Regio Decreto 18 giugno 1931, n. 787, in «Supplemento ordinario alla Gazzetta Ufficiale del Regno d’Italia» 147, 27 giugno 1931-IX, pp. 1-88;

D. Ronco, A. Sbraccia, V. Verdolini, Violenze e rivolte nei penitenziari della pandemia, in «Studi sulla questione criminale» XVII, 1, 2022, pp. 99-123;

D. Ronco, A. Sbraccia, V. Verdolini, La Violenza Penale. Conflitti, abusi e resistenze nello spazio penitenziario. Special Issue of «Antigone. Semestrale di critica del Sistema penale e penitenziario», 2, 2021;

E. Sanna, Inchiesta sulle carceri, Bari, De Donato, 1970;

L. Scarcella, D. Di Croce, Gli spazi della pena nei modelli architettonici, in «Rassegna penitenziaria e criminologica», 1, 3, 2001, pp. 341-80;

R. A. Rosenstone, History on Film/Film on History, London, Routledge, 2006;

P. Sorlin, The Film in History. Restaging the Past, Totowa, N.J., Barnes & Noble, 1980;

R. Sparks, Masculinity and Heroism in the Hollywood Blockbuster, in «British Journal of Criminology», 36, 3, 1996, pp. 348-60;

L. Steffenoni, Il caso Tortora. Un legal thriller di sconvolgente attualità, Milano, Chiarelettere, 2018;

R. Surette, Media, Crime, and Criminal Justice, 2nd ed., Belmont, CA, Wadsworth, 1997;

A. Tranchina, Vecchio e nuovo a proposito di lavoro penitenziario, in Diritti dei detenuti e trattamento penitenziario, a cura di V. Grevi, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1981, pp. 143-58;

Damiano Damiani: politica di un autore, edited by C. Uva, Roma, Bulzoni, 2014;

M. Wykes, News, Crime and Culture, London, Pluto Press, 2001.

Filmography

D. Damiani, L’istruttoria è chiusa. Dimentichi, performances by F. Nero and G. Wilson, Roma, Cecchi Gori, 1971;

F. Darabont, The Shawshank Redemption. Performances by T. Robbins and M. Freeman. Culver City, CA, Columbia Pictures, 1994;

N. Loy, Detenuto in attesa di giudizio. Screenplay by S. Amidei and E. Sanna. Performances by A. Sordi and E. Andersen, Roma, Fida Cinematografica, 1971;

R. Pazzaglia, Director. Farfallon. Italy, 1974. Performances by F. Franchi and C. Ingrassia, Roma, Variety;

E. Petri, Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto. Performances by Gian Maria Volonté and Florinda Bolkan, Roma, Euro International Film, 1970;

M. Scorsese, Cape Fear. Screenplay by W. Strick. Performances by R. De Niro, N. Nolte, J. Lange. Universal City, CA, Amblin Entertainment, 2001;

F. J. Schaffner, Papillon. Performances by S. McQueen and D. Hoffman. Culver City, CA, Columbia Pictures, 1973;

S. West, Con Air, Written by Scott Rosenberg, Performances by N. Cage, J. Cusack, and J. Malkovich. Burbank, CA, Touchstone Pictures, 1997.

Sitography

A. Borzacchello, Le rivolte in carcere nel secondo dopoguerra, in Polizia Penitenziaria: Società Giustizia e Sicurezza, 2019. Available online at: https://www.poliziapenitenziaria.it/le-rivolte-in-carcere-nel-secondo-dopoguerra/ [accessed on 3 July 2024];

E. Calamai, La riforma della legge 354 del 26 luglio 1975, in Ead. I soggetti del trattamento.
Aspetti normativi e sociologici, Roma, Collana «ADIR. L’Altro Diritto», 2003. Available online at http://www.adir.unifi.it/rivista/2003/calamai/cap2.htm [accessed on 3 July 2024];

Decreto Legge 374/75, 26 luglio. Norme sull’ordinamento penitenziario e sull’esecuzione delle misure privative e limitative della libertà. Available online at: https://presidenza.governo.it/USRI/ufficio_studi/normativa/L.%2026%20luglio%201975,%20n.%20354.pdf [accessed on 12 July 2024];

D. Palano, In nome del popolo italiano? Ripensare il «cinema civile» a partire da un volume curato da Guido Vitiello, 2014. Available online at: http://www.damianopalano.com/2014/03/in-nome-del-popolo-italiano-ripensare.html [accessed on 3 July 2024];

Ministero della Giustizia Dipartimento per gli Affari di Giustizia, Direzione Generale degli Affari Interni, Misure Cautelari Personali e Riparazione per Ingiusta Detenzione: dati anno 2023. Relazione al Parlamento ex L. 16 aprile 2015, n. 47 [Available online at https://www.sistemapenale.it/pdf_contenuti/1723379071_misure-cautelari-personali-2023-aggiornamento-aprile2024.pdf [accessed on 12 July 2024];

Resoconto stenografico dell’Assemblea Seduta n. 342 di mercoledì 7 agosto 2024 A.C. 2020 Decreto Legge n. 92 “Carceri” Ordine del giorno Enrico Costa n. 9/2002/95. Available online at https://www.sistemapenale.it/pdf_contenuti/1723132086_odg-riformulato-enrico-costa-n-9-2002-95.pdf [accessed on 12 July 2024];

A. Salvati, L’evoluzione della legislazione penitenziaria in Italia, in «Amministrazione in cammino. Rivista elettronica di diritto pubblico, di diritto dell’economia e di scienza dell’amministrazione a cura del Centro di ricerca sulle amministrazioni pubbliche “Vittorio Bachelet”», 2009. Available online at: https://www.amministrazioneincammino.luiss.it/2009/07/09/l%E2%80%99evoluzione-della-legislazione-penitenziaria-in-italia/ [accessed on 4 July 2024];

A. Zeppi, La riforma dell’ordinamento penitenziario, in «Ambiente Diritto», 25, 2005 [n.p.]. Available online at:

https://www.ambientediritto.it/dottrina/Dottrina_2005/riforma_ord_penitenziario_zeppi.htm [accessed on 3 July 2024].

  1. N. Rafter, Crime, film and criminology: Recent sex-crime movies, in «Theoretical Criminology», 11, 3, 2007, pp. 403-20. ↑
  2. R. Surette, Media, Crime, and Criminal Justice, 2nd ed., Belmont, CA, Wadsworth, 1997, p. 1. ↑
  3. Ibidem. ↑
  4. See at least J. Bennett, Reel life after prison: Repression and reform in films about release from prison, in «The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice», n. 55, 4, 2010, pp. 353-68 and Id., The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The Media in Prison Films, in «The Howard Journal», n. 45, 2, 2006, pp. 97-115. ↑
  5. See M. Wykes, News, Crime and Culture, London, Pluto Press, 2001 and J. Fiske, Media Matters: Race and Gender in US Politics, Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press, 1996. ↑
  6. A good number of foundation sources on media representation of prison is readily available. Among those, see at least D. Cheatwood, Films about Adult, Male, Civilian Prisons: 1929-1995, in Popular Culture, Crime, and Justice, edited by F. Y. Bailey and D. C. Hale, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1998, pp. 209-31; R. M. Freeman, Public Perceptions and Corrections: Correctional Officers as Smug Hacks, in Popular Culture, Crime, and Justice, edited by Y. Bailey and D. C. Hale, cited; P. Mason, The screen machine: cinematic representations of prison, in Criminal Visions: Media Representations of Crime and Justice, edited by P. Mason, Cullompton, Willan, 2003, pp. 290-309; S. O’Sullivan, Representations of Prison in Nineties Hollywood Cinema: From Con Air to The Shawshank Redemption, in «The Howard Journal» 40, 4, 2001, pp. 317-34; N. Rafter, Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society, 2nd ed., New York, NY, Oxford University Press, 2006. ↑
  7. Criminology and Social Theory, edited by D. Garland and R. Sparks, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000. ↑
  8. For the relevance of cinema as a historical source and its importance in the interpretation of historical events, see the following critical sources: P. Sorlin, The Film in History: Restaging the Past, Totowa, N.J., Barnes & Noble, 1980; R. A. Rosenstone, History on Film/Film on History, London, Routledge, 2006, M. Hughes-Warrington, History Goes to the Movies: Studying History on Film, London, Routledge, 2007. ↑
  9. G. La Greca, La riforma penitenziaria del 1975 e la sua attuazione, in «Rassegna Penitenziaria e criminologica» 2-3, 2005, pp. 37-53: 38. ↑
  10. For the Italian case, please refer at least to the work done in the reframing of the canon in Imagining terrorism. The rhetoric and representation of political violence in Italy 1969-2009, edited by P. Antonello and A. O’Leary, Oxford, Legenda, 2009; P. Antonello and A. O’Leary, Italian cinema and the “anni di piombo”, in «Journal of European Studies», 40, 3, 2010, pp. 243-57; C. G. O’Rawe, S. Culhane, D. Hipkins, D. Treveri Gennari, S. Dibeltulo, Italian Cinema Audiences: Histories and Memories of Cinema-going in Post-war Italy, London-New York, Bloomsbury, 2020. ↑
  11. Translations from the original in Italian throughout this paper are mine unless otherwise stated. In order not to excessively encumber the text, I have often opted to quote from primary and secondary sources in Italian (films and critical texts) directly in English. ↑
  12. A. Zeppi, La riforma dell’ordinamento penitenziario, in «Ambiente Diritto», 25, 2005 [n. p.]. Available online at:

    https://www.ambientediritto.it/dottrina/Dottrina_2005/riforma_ord_penitenziario_zeppi.htm [accessed on 3 July 2024]; N. Cantor, The New Prison Program of Italy, in «Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology», n. 26, 2, 1935, pp. 216-27: 219. ↑

  13. With some significant exceptions, at least from an urbanistic point of view, as shown, for instance, by the Carceri Nuove in Turin, San Vittore in Milan, and Regina Coeli in Rome. All located in densely populated areas of the respective cities, these penitentiaries became also symbols of the fascist repressive system (see, in particular, J. Foot, The tale of San Vittore: Prisons, Politics, Crime and Fascism in Milan, 1943–1946, in «Modern Italy», n. 3, 1, 1998, pp. 25-48, for a study of San Vittore as fascist prison and S. De Angelis, S. Torge, La realtà invisibile: breve storia del diritto penitenziario dagli Stati preunitari ad oggi, in Momenti di storia della giustizia: materiali di un seminario, a cura di L. Pace, S. Santucci, G. Serges, Roma, Aracne, 2011, pp. 9-35 for a brief overview of carceral spaces and institutions during the fascist years). These prisons’ towering prominence at crowded urban intersections served, in the eyes of the regime, to remind the population that political dissidents of their fate (L. Scarcella, D. Di Croce, Gli spazi della pena nei modelli architettonici, in «Rassegna penitenziaria e criminologica» 1, 3, 2001, pp. 341-80). At Regina Coeli, in particular, key opposers of the regime were incarcerated, including Antonio Gramsci, who was detained in Rome before his first period of imprisonment in Ustica, and other opposers of Mussolini and his blackshirts including writer Curzio Malaparte, musicologist Massimo Mila, politicians Mario Pannunzio and Sandro Pertini. Amerigo Dumini, the killer of Giacomo Matteotti, also spent 11 months of his imprisonment in the Roman city jail before being released in consequence of Mussolini’s pardon. ↑
  14. According to art. 265, those who were unable to work should have been destined to other penal institutions, while those whose conduct was deemed to have been particularly good behind bars could be receiving a more favorable treatment thus being assigned to internal tasks, often under the direct supervision of the warden (art. 269). ↑
  15. See, as general reading, V. Gammino, La Scuola Positiva ed il nuovo Codice Penale (1891), Eboli, Sparano, 1891 and L. Lacché, A Criminal Code for the Unification of Italy: the Zanardelli Code (1889) – The genesis, The debate, The legal project, in «Sequência», n. 68, 2014, pp. 37-57. ↑
  16. However, the proportionality between the sentence to be served and the severity of the work was also largely established automatically (art. 279) on the basis of the provision that precluded access to less heavy services (work in the kitchens or other “domestic duties”) for those who had been guilty of particular crimes, such as theft, robbery, offenses against morality, recidivism, or those inmates who had to serve a certain type of sentence (e.g. prisoners serving a life sentence were admitted to communal work only after having served twenty years of imprisonment). See A. Tranchina, Vecchio e nuovo a proposito di lavoro penitenziario, in Diritti dei detenuti e trattamento penitenziario, a cura di V. Grevi, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1981, pp. 143-58. ↑
  17. Although forced labour was still considered as an integral part of the punishment in the 1891 legislation, within the reform project there were controversial and contradicting articles that simultaneously denied the nature of labor as a punishment and conceded that inmates serving a “lighter” sentence were assigned to less tiring work, while those incarcerated for several years would have been subjected to heavier assignments. It is a fact that the Zanardelli code still made forced labour an integral part of the penal function of “graduating the punitive level” of the sentence to be served by single inmates. ↑
  18. See G. Novelli, II nuovo regolamento per gli istituti di prevenzione e di pena, in «Rivista di diritto penitenziario» 1, 1931, pp. 518-49: 549. In 1931, the journal resumed its publication in a renewed guise and with an editorial program of clear fascist matrix. The «Journal of Penitentiary Law – Theoretical and practical studies» (this is the title with which the publication resumed), set new objectives, which Giovanni Novelli – General Director of the Prevention and Punishment Institutes, as well as director of the periodical – summarizes as follows in the Presentazione of the first issue: «[the journal] is part of the vast and complex program of the activity of the great fascist legislator, to whom the credit goes for having started a reform of penal institutions, which, by unanimous opinion, has preserved for Italy the primacy that an uninterrupted tradition, in science, in laws, in practice, had assigned to it» (G. Novelli, Presentazione, in «Rivista di diritto penitenziario» 1, 1931, pp. 1-2). ↑
  19. G. La Greca, La riforma penitenziaria del 1975 e la sua attuazione, cited, p. 52. ↑
  20. The documentary followed the publication of the results of the investigation (E. Sanna, Inchiesta sulle carceri, Bari, De Donato, 1970) and was screened in three episodes: La carriera del detenuto, Trattamento, and Detenuto essere umano. ↑
  21. At the Carceri Nuove in Turin the protest exploded on 11 April 1969, the day of the general strike following the killing of two people in clashes with the police in Battipaglia. The inmates were asking for the reform of the penitentiary system and from the beginning it was a different protest from those that had sporadically occurred in previous years, always linked to specific conditions of the individual prison. At the end of 1969, the main groups of the extra-parliamentary left were born in the wake of workers’ struggles. In particular, Lotta continua paid great attention to the movement in prisons, with a specific and very active cell, I dannati della terra, soon to be joined by the Soccorso rosso of Dario Fo and Franca Rame. In the two-year period 1971-72, when the riots became more frequent and violent, the prisons were – together with the factories, the schools and the universities – the front lines of social unrest and conflict in the country, also due to the emergence of some politicized leader figures among the inmates, such as Sante Notarnicola (1938-2021). Inmates revolted against specific incidents, such as punishments or transfers to prisons too far from their families, thus forcing the public opinion and the legislator to take note of their unbearable living conditions in dilapidated or overcrowded prisons and loudly demand a comprehensive reform of the carceral system. Forms of mobilization varied, from refusing to return to their cells after their daily hour of exercise, to protests on the rooftops; from hunger strikes to outright revolt. From 1971 to 1973 the protests multiplied with the government stalling over the long-awaited reform. On 23 February 1974, the inmates of the ‘Murate’ prison in Florence climbed onto the roof of the institution, throwing tiles at the officers who responded by shooting. A 20-year-old boy serving a sentence for theft was killed. On 9 May, tragedy struck again at the prison of Alessandria where three inmates took 13 people hostages, including guards and prison staff, and barricaded themselves in the kitchens and in the bathrooms. The situation was not uncommon, and it would usually be resolved with a swift negotiation. However, the situation this time intertwined with the ongoing political situation as the referendum on divorce was polarizing the political debate: while the communist party ordered to its members to stay away from the matter and pulled out of the negotiations, now solely in the hands of progressist priest Don Maurilio Guasco, the Andreotti-Malagodi cabinet (Andreotti II) decided in favour of a public showing of strength. General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa ordered a blitz that led to five casualties: the most tragic outcome of a riot in Italian prisons until 2020, when 9 inmates died in the Modena penitentiary. See A. Borzacchello, Le rivolte in carcere nel secondo dopoguerra, in Polizia Penitenziaria: Società Giustizia e Sicurezza, 2019. Available online at: https://www.poliziapenitenziaria.it/le-rivolte-in-carcere-nel-secondo-dopoguerra/ [accessed on 3 July 2024]. See also Violenze e rivolte nei penitenziari della pandemia, in «Studi sulla questione criminale» XVII, 1, 2022, edited by D. Ronco, A. Sbraccia, V. Verdolini, pp. 99-123. A special issue has been dedicated by Antigone and curated by the same authors. See La Violenza Penale: Conflitti, abusi e resistenze nello spazio penitenziario. Special Issue of «Antigone. Semestrale di critica del Sistema penale e penitenziario», 2, 2021, edited by D. Ronco, A. Sbraccia, V. Verdolini. ↑
  22. Costituzione italiana: Nuova edizione, introduzione di G. Ambrosini, Torino, Einaudi, 2010, p. 11. ↑
  23. E. Calamai, La riforma della legge 354 del 26 luglio 1975, in Ead. I soggetti del trattamento. Aspetti normativi e sociologici, Roma, Collana «ADIR. L’Altro Diritto», 2003. Available online at: http://www.adir.unifi.it/rivista/2003/calamai/cap2.htm [accessed on 3 July 2024]. ↑
  24. The Legge Gozzini, or Legge 10 ottobre 1986, n. 663 was passed by the Italian Parliament, with broad consensus and the sole vote against of the far-right Movimento Sociale Italiano with the aim of enhancing the re-educational aspect of imprisonment above to the punitive one, normally prevalent in the detention regime in the absence of specific measures. Some subsequent amendments to the law also introduced the benefit of the possibility of sealing individual criminal records to make convictions less damaging for the convict or in the absence of certain elements of severity («non menzione della pena»). A comprehensive reform of the penitentiary system was promoted and strongly supported by the Italian Ministry of Justice led by Andrea Orlando in 2018. The Gentiloni cabinet, based on precise guidelines dictated by the legislator, was delegated to reorganize the penitentiary system by, among other things, simplifying the procedures regulating the activities of the supervising magistrates, facilitating the use of alternative measures, eliminating automatisms and preclusions from accessing benefits and rewards. One of the most innovative aspects of the reform, which remained largely unimplemented, was the encouragement of restorative justice by increasing intramural and external work opportunities for inmates, enhancing volunteering, recognizing the right to affection and other rights of constitutional importance and ensuring the effectiveness of the re-educational function of punishment. See A. Della Bella, Riforma Orlando: La delega in materia di ordinamento penitenziario, in «Diritto Penale Contemporaneo», 6, 2017, pp. 250-52. ↑
  25. P. Clementi, Pensieri dal carcere [1973], Fagnano Alto, il Sirente, 2007, p. 25. Clementi published in Italian a shorter memoir titled Carcere italiano (Milano, il Formichiere, 1973) immediately after his release. ↑
  26. L. Luttazzi, Operazione Montecristo, Milano, Mursia, 1970, pp. 236-37. ↑
  27. Ivi, p. 5. ↑
  28. According to Durkheim, delinquency is a normal and necessary occurrence in society within which a consensus is reached about what all its constituent parts (functions) regard as shareable morals and ethical norms to be followed. Acting outside of these norms and borders results in deviance and criminal behaviour. See E. Durkheim, The Rules of the Sociological Method [1895], Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1938, pp. 97-104. ↑
  29. Indeed, Di Noi and his family are travelling with a German shepherd on the back seat and his humorous reaction to the police’s request to verify his identity rests in his firm conviction that nothing can go wrong as he is a respected law-abiding citizen. Loy works on the dialectic relationship between (good) citizens and institutions in the footsteps of the trailblazer of the «judicial film» [film giudiziario], namely Elio Petri’s Indagine su un Cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (1970). ↑
  30. Detenuto 10’.10” – 12’.13”. ↑
  31. A. Minuz, Giustizia, cinema politico e ideologia italian. Due film a confronto: Detenuto in attesa di giudizio e In nome del popolo Italiano, in In nome della legge. La giustizia nel cinema italiano, a cura di G. Vitiello, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2013, pp. 65-81: 70. ↑
  32. G. Gambetti, L’istruttoria è chiusa: dimentichi di Damiano Damiani, in «Cineforum», 110-111, 1972, p. 31. ↑
  33. Istruttoria, 42’.12”. ↑
  34. At the time of filming L’Istruttoria è chiusa, dimentichi, the Vajont Dam failure and consequent disaster was still an open wound in Italian recent history, especially given the criminal consequences that accompanied the tragedy and the controversies that followed both the criminal and civil trials. The legal proceedings have been discussed in P. Martinelli, Suprema Corte di Cassazione, Sezione IV penale; sentenza 25 marzo 1971; Pres. Rosso P., Est. Bonadonna, P. M. Lapiccirella (concl. parz. diff.); ric. Biadene ed altri, in «Il Foro Italiano», vol. 94, n. 12, 1971, pp. 717-52. ↑
  35. See D. Palano, In nome del popolo italiano? Ripensare il «cinema civile» a partire da un volume curato da Guido Vitiello, 2014. Available online at: http://www.damianopalano.com/2014/03/in-nome-del-popolo-italiano-ripensare.html [accessed on 3 July 2024]. Damiani’s view of the prison as a sort of mise en abîme of Italian society is shared by Clementi. Talking about the degradation of inmates within the Italian prison system, he maintains in his memoir: «it is not enough to deprive them of their freedom but it’s also opportune to mortify them in their flesh and spirit. We ought to open up the doors of the prison to society in its entirety to show that the first is the logical consequence of the [disastrous] state of the other». See P. Clementi, Pensieri dal carcere, cited, p. 85. ↑
  36. In Detenuto in attesa di giudizio, the figure of the superior triggers the surprised and consternated reaction of Di Noi: «Superior to whom?!? To What?!? Superior to me?!?» [Ma superiore a chi?!? Superiore a che cosa?!? Superiore a me?!?] (Detenuto 16’.34” – 16’.39”). ↑
  37. For an overview and in-depth analysis of Damiani’s cinema see at least: Damiano Damiani: politica di un autore, edited by C. Uva, Roma, Bulzoni, 2014 and A. Pezzotta, Regia Damiano Damiani, Pordenone, Cinemazero, 2004. ↑
  38. Ministero della Giustizia Dipartimento per gli Affari di Giustizia, Direzione Generale degli Affari Interni, Misure Cautelari Personali e Riparazione per Ingiusta Detenzione: dati anno 2023. Relazione al Parlamento ex L. 16 aprile 2015, n. 47. Available online at https://www.sistemapenale.it/pdf_contenuti/1723379071_misure-cautelari-personali-2023-aggiornamento-aprile2024.pdf [accessed on 12 July 2024]. ↑
  39. A writing of its own would deserve one of the most blatant miscarriages of justice in Italian recent history, which hit TV personality Enzo Tortora in 1977. Tortora not only had to serve time awaiting trial but was also convicted on drug-dealing and organized crime-related charges. He was acquitted after a three-year long appeal battle and died of cancer soon after his acquittal and having meanwhile lost his seat in the European Parliament. Upon his return on screen in 1987 Tortora famously vowed to be a living testimony for those who could not speak out and where the victims of an unjust criminal justice system. A recent essay in investigative journalism focusing on this judicial case is L. Steffenoni, Il caso Tortora. Un legal thriller di sconvolgente attualità, Milano, Chiarelettere, 2018. ↑
  40. Resoconto stenografico dell’Assemblea Seduta n. 342 di mercoledì 7 agosto 2024 A.C. 2020 Decreto Legge n. 92 “Carceri” Ordine del giorno Enrico Costa n. 9/2002/95. Available online at https://www.sistemapenale.it/pdf_contenuti/1723132086_odg-riformulato-enrico-costa-n-9-2002-95.pdf [accessed on 12 July 2024]. ↑
  41. Measures to tackle the overcrowding stemming from the abuse of pre-trial incarceration have been announced by current Minister of Justice On. Carlo Nordio, namely the transfer of foreign prisoners to their countries of origin, the inclusion of drug addicts in recovery communities instead of prison, and the limitation of the use of precautionary custody in general. As this article is being sent to press, no further indications have been given on concrete measures to impose such limitations to courts and magistrates. ↑
  42. I modestly make mine the idea of peculiar institution as both defining of a penal system and resiliently surviving over time as outlined by David Garland in his key study of death penalty in America and it’s tenacious resistance after the abolition of slavery. See D. Garland, Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2012. ↑
  43. A. Minuz, Giustizia, cinema politico e ideologia italian. Due film a confronto: Detenuto in attesa di giudizio e In nome del popolo Italiano, cited, p. 65. ↑
  44. Farfallon, 9’. 34”. ↑
  45. Unconvinced, Farfallon asks the Baron: «Ma io ce l’ho il colon?» [Do I have a colon too?] (Farfallon, 10’, 32”). ↑
  46. In a flashback scene, we see Farfallon perpetrating the attempted murder of his wife, by drowning her in a large bowl of custard cream in the back of his pastry shop. ↑
  47. Farfallon 49’. 20”. ↑
  48. For this and the previous quotation, see Farfallon, 49’.21” – 49’.54”. ↑
  49. This is the first time in the movie that the Baron is arrested for attempting to flee. Astutely, he had previously avoided incurring any additional charge to that of bribery in order to receive a full acquittal thus keeping up appearances upon his release. By his own admission, a clean criminal record would allow him to continue undisturbed his life made of shady business once released. ↑
  50. During World War II, on 17 September 1943, German troops invaded Pianosa and occupied it. The French also briefly took over the island in March 1944 before the Allies bombed the following month. For a comprehensive documentary history of Pianosa in the context of the penal system of the Tuscan islands, see A. Gambardella, Le colonie penali nell’Arcipelago Toscano fra l’Ottocento e il Novecento, Empoli, Ibiskos Ulivieri Edizioni, 2006, and F. Mele, Le isole sono nate fatte per luoghi di pena. Pianosa e le colonie penali agricole nell’Italia dell’Ottocento, in «Materiali per una storia della cultura giuridica», XXVI, n. 2, 1996, pp. 359-81. For a comprehensive and shorter historical profile of the Italian penal colonies, see respectively Giustizia penale e ordine in Italia tra Otto e Novecento, edited by L. Martone, Napoli, Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1996, and G. Neppi Modona, La parabola storica delle colonie penali, in Le colonie penali nell’Europa dell’Ottocento, edited by M. Da Passano, Roma, Carocci Editore, 2004, pp. 11-16. ↑
  51. R. Sparks, Masculinity and Heroism in the Hollywood Blockbuster, in «British Journal of Criminology» 36, 3, 1996, pp. 348-60. ↑
  52. Farfallon, 1h, 26’, 45”. ↑
  53. N. Rafter, Shots in the Mirror, cited, p. 174. ↑
  54. A. Minuz, Giustizia, cinema politico e ideologia italian. Due film a confronto: Detenuto in attesa di giudizio e In nome del popolo Italiano, cited, p. 66. ↑
  55. P. Mason, Prison Decayed. Cinematic Penal Discourse and Populism 1995-2005, in «Social Semiotics», 16, 4, 2006, pp. 607-26: 622. ↑
  56. It is beyond the scope of this essay to measure in sociological terms the impact of these films on public discourse and society; here is to hoping that in some way this modest paper will elicit some interest in the topic and pave the way to more in depth research bridging cinema studies in Italian, history, and criminology. ↑

(fasc. 52, 31 luglio 2024)