Search

Visitors to Italian prisons must be impressed by the fact that the insufficiency and imperfection of their plants are largely compensated by the excellence and ability of their administrative and disciplinary personnel. With notable exceptions, Italian prisons are still housed in more or less ancient buildings; not infrequently they were formerly convents, which, however remodelled and modernized, are structurally unsuited to the best forms of penitentiary construction and unadapted for the installation of helpful hygienic contrivances. On the other hand, the men who superintend and manage them are splendidly equipped for their work. It is not merely that politics plays no part in prison appointments; it is that prison management is a profession and offers a life's career with a pension and certain official honors to those who follow it. Prison directors must be university graduates with a law degree, except in the case of directors of penal institutions for the insane, who must be physicians. All are encouraged to take courses in criminal sociology and penology, and advancement depends on length of service and merit.