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Voices From Jail: The Humanity You Won’t Expect | Cosima Buccoliero | TEDxMilano


[Applause]
some time ago we received one
institutional visit to prison i
visitors have been around
of the institute focused on
talk to the detained people and then
we also treated the topic
of life imprisonment and life sentences and to one
some point they were very surprised
when I said that you stamped them
people sentenced to life imprisonment have
right to the single room and they have me
asked why
and I answered but because they are so
better and this my answer than to me
it seemed very obvious it actually did
continued to surprise them
interlocutors
so much so that it is like saying I have them
seen really very perplexed while
then they went away
who has never been in jail
prison as if it imagines it or not if it
imagine everything or imagine it
as in this photo with the courtyard
walking and the detained people who
they come and go without having anything to do
to do because this is the imaginary one
as it sends us back to refer us
film, I think very few of you do
they would remember the prison to draw
the prison if they had drawn one
map of a city ​​would put us
maybe the hospital the court the school
the playground is kindergarten but hardly
they would remember the prison because the
we look at him from a distance and I
we consider it as something else
compared to us for example by traveling
the highway for varese we can
we can note this
huge gray building that gets confused
a little with the gray of the highway that
the prison of bills is however in
reality we do not stop to think how
the persons detained live inside
not for nothing most of the
penitentiary institutions are built
out of the city ​​away from the centers
inhabited almost to put a distance of
safety between us and the good ones
bad we are the good we are
out of the bad guys they are
inside
and this seems sufficient to us
feel secure in reality there in prison
they are people and there are not only them
people detained
but there are a lot of people there are the
the director is there the director is there
policemen there are educators i
accountants the people who play
volunteer activities and are
many and even those who come has
found their family members or who
carries out other activities that are always working
in short, there are people and like all of them
all the places where there are people
these are in relation to which the
football was full of many feelings
of antipathies of sympathy of anxiety and of
fear of rebellion and why not also
of pleasant moments because at the bottom of
lime of life continues
I chose to work I in prison
chosen both at the time I have
passed the competition to become
director of the prison and then I have it too
chosen at the time when the then new one
director of the stamps prison has me
called and told me the prison of
bollate is just open and there is so much to be
to do and then I have proposed myself to
come to work with her here in Milan
and it was the professional choice
best I’ve ever done
I met many faces of faces
some people are people who since
little ones breathed in the area of ​​jail
it’s a bit like ending up in jail
perhaps they had already counted it for
some behaviors also people that
they come from delinquent situations
very difficult but there are also people
that out when there was a life
absolutely normal and then not yes
He knows well what the reason is
success
what has changed they found themselves to
be involved in the criminal circuit
football and above all deprivation not
it is only loss of personal freedom
total deprivation can not be called
when you want you can not eat
what you want you can not see i
loved ones when you want
you can not even a tablet for
the headache and for whatever
situation for any need for
whatever need we need to ask the
allowed to someone
think what it means to spend
even just a year or even just a month
even if one day of her
having to depend on other people who
they must also evaluate the need
effective of the request and therefore
evaluate whether to authorize positively
even negative when you are not right
completely master of their own
existence of one’s life and one is
delivered to the prison institution
an institution that also has many rules
very much bureaucratized rigid
very self-referential also
rather paradoxical because it concerns
from the outside and unfortunately the moment more
ugly I believe in my opinion of the name of
a person who enters the prison is
certainly the moment of entry on
time of entry where the person
he finds himself completely away from the
its own reality of its existence
and then leave the voices and the noises
outside and finds itself with noises voices
inside maybe on the way of one
welding, however, that is not the lock
at home or in a prison
as big as that of stamps in which you
the announcements of the
speakers several times a day and that
they cover all the other sounds
in short, the passion inside all
parties outside and in the middle there is a wall that
it does not make you see people outside
it’s not good for you, it does not make you hear the voices
the sounds and you only have the voices i
sounds of the inside that you have to get used to
there is not even your voice because of it
voice if anything has remained swallowed in the
stomach because the whole world collapses
on you and at that moment it is not
no chance of shouting not
There is not even a whisper and
suddenly you find yourself being
included in an overnight room
a cell, in short, a cell that very often
it is also overcrowded
I do not know if you’ve ever heard
speak
of the situation of overcrowding
prison probably because i
media have talked about it a lot but I would like to
a little decline this concept
Prison overcrowding means
that a room a cell that was
built to accommodate ten people in
reality hosts 5 and therefore like
let’s keep these people
inside the cell we must
set it up with bunk beds and there
we find ourselves in a situation where the
person who at the top is found with the
face crushed against the wall do not you
can move missing the air and can not
stand up not all together either
they certainly can not sit down
together because there is not even space
and must use only one service
hygienic all together in turn then
think a little about that situation really
complicated that can derive from this
overcrowding situation and this
situation that brought the state
Italian in 2013 to be condemned
from the strasbourg convention for
inhuman and degrading treatment
since 2013 then the situation is a lot
changed in the sense that they were put
in progress of the remedies for
try to limit reducing the
phenomenon of overcrowding and yet
yes, this condemnation of the court
European Union of Human Rights
I admit in light has highlighted the
fact that we must recover
necessarily starting from the guarantee
of the physical spaces of the fitness of the
physical spaces
the educational function of punishment because
if we do not recover the function of
education of the foreseen sentence
from article 27 of ours
constitution
the custodial sentence becomes only friction
becomes atonement becomes punishment e
what is the first consequence the
consequence is that the person is
will hear the detained person will hear
victim of a victim system of
injustice will be all concentrated
on what is the injustice that in
that moment is undergoing and there will not be
space for reflection for one
critical situation there will be no space
to resume rethinking also air gt
who has put in place for himself that
led to the commission of the crime
in the final analysis there will be no place for
the victim while we know
that the re-educational path of the
detained person must in this path
there must also be space for the
victim or things therefore starting from
guarantee of space to be able to put back
at the center of the prison organization
person detained because only
through knowledge and through
listening to the person can be with him
take an accompanying route
outside the prison of bollate part
certainly from a favorable situation
from an advantageous situation because
it has many spaces and these spaces
you have to fill them and fill them up
through with the activities of the
activities that make sense that they have a
meaning that they serve
what does it mean sometimes?
I still listen to speeches outside
rather even so obvious when you do
he says here the person goes to jail
start studying, start working
he is also also being paid to him
a salary
it seems almost a privilege actually
does when we think about training and al
I work in prison and I speak only of
job training but I could talk about
many other activities of many
other initiatives that always serve to
this path that will accompany the
people outside but when we talk
of job training I speak of
tools that will serve the person
detained for building life
outside tools that i
they will allow you to have them
second chance of the latter
chance and see that this is not one
what only affects people
that if anything, they lived out of expedients
people who are not particularly
so they did not make big ones
school paths unemployed people
people I ‘ve never felt like or
they never found a job that
then it was fine but it is the
the same speech is also made
for people who are detained and who
instead they really had roles too
very high within the company
it’s about people that in the moment in
which will come out at the time of
resignation of the sentence will not be possible
find again they will not be able to start again
life from the moment they left it
because that life no longer exists e
they will have to reinvent themselves they will have to learn
another trade will have to reinvent
a new situation and this again
It’s true for everyone and so I told you
the job training activity here
see a classroom that people
you see from behind they do not seem so much anymore
young people probably are not
but I believe that at any moment yes
he can start a journey
scholastic as well as in every moment yes
can start an activity again
working different the important that you
quality points and us to stamp
we have ready focused on quality
here for example you see a laboratory of
call center to many of you do not know that
he called a telephone operator
mobile answers the call center of the
prison or the laboratory that
rebuilds the coffee machines
or the greenhouses that are managed
from the cooperative that also cultivates
of rare plants and I could do it
many examples because you focus on
quality means to give I repeat to you
tools of opportunities to
people who can then spend the
tailoring the leather workshop the
restaurant in jail restaurant in
galera that is an example of
excellence an example of excellence
because people come from the city
they come from outside and they can be
served are served by people
held that among other things have made gods
training paths really a lot
qualifying
in short, the detained person can not
being reduced to the crime committed is not
a crime that walks
certainly for the behavior that
may be must be one
sanction also detention if we can not
to do without
but this must have a sense must
have its usefulness
the football that must try to be
a social institution an institution
which favors relationships that favors
social exchanges both within the
prison but also with the company myself
I believe that a football model of the
possible both what it was
made in the prison of bollate and here
I raise my voice because the decisive of the
people leaving the prison
stamps is around 17 per
one hundred compared to 70 percent of the
national average
I think it’s really a good thing to go
very shouted as well as shouted
according to me also the data of the collapse of the
news crimes that has been reported since
public security department and that
it covers this last year to tell you
which in my opinion do not need new ones
Prisons and no use are no longer needed
prisons and in most prisons
I believe that we must deal with it
necessarily of the prison that is there and
we have to take care of all of them
think about it the next time you visit
find to draw the map of one
city ​​thank you
[Applause]
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