How prisons are organized and managed reflects historical, contemporary, and emerging understandings of correctional goals. Major changes in penal policies, then, represent opportunities to investigate the translation of changes in the mix of goals into on-the-ground policies that govern day-to-day penal operations. The Italian prison system is in the process of implementing an innovative new policy with regard to housing prisoners that offers just such an opportunity.
Drawing upon theoretical frameworks that examine policy development within both structural and organizational constraints, this project is guided by two research questions: 1) What is the cultural, political, and criminal justice context (and resulting discourse) surrounding the development of the new housing policy in Italy? (2) How does this compare to the American context and discourse surrounding the incarceration of inmates? To answer these questions, three forms of data will be collected. Media reports and online discussions will reveal the public engagement with this issue. Ethnographic observation and interviews with actors within the Italian policy community will be used to examine the sociopolitical context. Finally, policy documents will be used to determine the formal trajectory of policy development.
This comparative examination of correctional policy will inform international understandings of criminal justice policy decision-making and correctional practices regarding the management and protection of inmate populations. This work is timely in an era when corrections departments espouse evidence-based practices and criminologists strive to have an active voice in policy discussion. The development of research partnerships with international colleagues in policy and scholarly settings will expand American reference points used to improve criminal justice practices.
In the last two decades correctional systems worldwide have begun to provide increased attention to transgender inmates. When the BBC reported that Italy would open the world’s first transgender-only prison, this historic news brought to the fore the questions that many systems have been grappling with: Should transgender inmates be housed within same-sex facilities? Should they be housed in separate units within these facilities? Should there be separate correctional facilities for this, and other, groups? If so, what criteria will be used? This project set out to examine the cultural, political, and criminal justice context and discussions around the development of the transgender-only prison in Italy, and to determine how these compare to the U.S. However, throughout the course of the research the idea to open a transgender-only prison was halted. In order to make sense of the proposal and interruption of the transgender-only prison in Italy, it became necessary to also identify and understand current approaches used for the incarceration of this group. Over the course of two years, I made four trips to Italy to collect data from the national correctional headquarters, seven correctional facilities housing transgender inmates, a medical clinic, and activist organizations. During these visits I conducted group and individual interviews with sixty-one participants in varying roles: correctional employees at the national and facility levels, mental health and medical professionals, and activists in the community. I used a semi-structured format for interviews, asking respondents about their perspectives on the management and treatment of transgender prisoners, the transgender-only prison, and Italian culture as it pertained to this group. In addition to interview data, I also collected publicly available archival documents and policy documents. Data analysis for this work remains underway. Preliminary findings reveal that prior to the proposal to develop a transgender-only prison Italy was already employing innovative and internationally unique practices for this group. For example, the practice of housing transgender inmates separately from the general population (and among protected populations) has been used in Italy for a long time; more recently, transgender-only housing units have become common. Additionally, transgender inmates are permitted to wear feminine clothing while housed in male facilities. These approaches are different from those most common in the U.S. today. Italy’s focus on individuality, at least in principle, appears to be consistent with system principles of reeducation and reintegration that necessarily entail taking into account inmates’ level of risk of victimization and individual need. Participants generally reported that transgender inmates presented a different level of risk with regard to safety and relationships than other inmates and experienced unique needs. These perspectives are central to the proposal of the transgender-only prison, which may have been part of a sequence of decisions focused on individualized treatment and group risk management for other uniquely situated groups of offenders (e.g., female inmates). The impetus for the proposal is attentiveness to both need and risk; the barriers to its implementation, however, point to perceptions about availability of resources. Resources are invested where the need is perceived to be greatest and need can be measured by the count of the population served rather than severity. While corrections professionals at the national level were central to setting the agenda of a transgender-only prison in Italy, political interest groups, the public, and facility corrections practitioners may have influenced its interruption. Rationales for this include the managerial challenges related to housing many transgender inmates in one setting and ideas about how best to use limited resources. One rationale for transgender housing practices in Italy may be consistent with those provided in the U.S. for its housing practices: safety. Yet underlying this rationale are different organizational missions among different penal cultures. In the U.S., safety is one part of a larger pursuit of custody within a penal culture of punitive orientations. In Italy, dividing, categorizing, and sorting according to risk and need represent a merging of Treatment Era and actuarial efforts which have characterized the U.S. system at different points in time. The system image portrayed by Italian participants is of risk assessment in pursuit of meeting needs. In the U.S., sorting groups arguably serves to restrain predators in order to reduce the number of incidents. This research contributes to existing research that makes sense of comparatively 'harsh' American penality through international cultural analyses. It also contributes to the policy dialogue about where and how transgender inmates will be housed in pursuit of correctional goals of safety and security, humane confinement, rehabilitation, dignity, and cost efficiency. It can also provide an understanding of decisions around what criteria will be used to classify prisoners and with what possible consequences for prisoner experiences and facility operations. In doing so, this research enhances the visibility of this underrepresented group, helping to inform corrections policy reform around the health and safety of vulnerable populations.
