Director Feltri,
I am a prisoner on semi-liberty, Walter Monaco, in Verziano. As a prisoner I will tell you why there is an inequality of treatment in favor of Giacomo Bozzoli. When a definitive sentence such as life imprisonment is issued, the practice is for the prisoner to be transferred from a District Prison (Judicial Prison) to a Detention Center. Mr. Bozzoli was transferred to the model prison in Bollate. In order to get to Bollate, convicted prisoners must follow a specific treatment program that can often last years. The prison in Bollate is considered a hotel by us prisoners, single cells, pet therapy with dogs and horses, open-air interviews, nothing to do with Canton Mombello, where I was for two years, Opera, where I was also there for almost two years, or Verziano, where I am currently on semi-liberty. Now is the time to say ENOUGH, there are class A prisoners and class B prisoners and even class C prisoners. Fifty-six suicides since the beginning of the year, no one was concerned about possible self-harm by these people who, unlike Mr. Bozzoli, were not equally advantaged by being transferred to Bollate (a model prison). I don’t think it’s right that Mr. Bozzoli, after seven hours in Canton Mombello, was transferred to the best prison in Italy compared to people who had to pass through the Milanese prison of Opera for years. Now that’s enough, every time a media case happens, they are granted preferential treatment, see also Chico Forti, who in no time managed to go and visit his mother, I saw my mother closed in a coffin because I had to choose whether to go to the farewell or to the funeral. Now that’s enough. My mother died and they told me: “Either you see her open or you see her closed at the funeral”. There is general anger among the inmates. I think of Forti who arrives and goes around the prison welcomed as a martyr, while today the Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation against him regarding the alleged favors asked of ‘ndrangheta members to silence journalists who speak badly of him. Bozzoli, after killing his uncle, seems to be the victim and for fear of a suicide they transfer him to Bollate, in the face of the 56 inmates who committed suicide this year. This is Italy, the more you do, the less you pay.
Walter Munchen
Dear Walter,
you speak to me of a sort of “war between the poor”, forgive me the perhaps unfortunate expression, which nevertheless describes well this climate of antipathy, envy, jealousy among prisoners. After all, prison is nothing but a reflection of the world that is beyond the bars and like this it is a jungle, where in some way it is necessary to survive, bearing moreover a burden that is sometimes unbearable, that is the suspension or loss of personal freedom following an intervening conviction. This fact, however, cannot and must not lead to the subtraction of those inviolable rights that the prisoner also enjoys as a human being. And this explains the numerous convictions suffered by Italy by the European Court of Human Rights for the inhuman and degrading treatment reserved for prisoners as well as for the inadequacy of health care in prison.
As an Italian, I cannot help but admit that I am ashamed of our penitentiary system, where not only prisoners but also prison police officers suffer from existential discomfort that too often ends in suicide. And so I ask myself: how can the State be credible when it demands respect for the law if at the same time it is guilty of serious breaches and crimes? Our penitentiary institutions are old and dilapidated, essential services are lacking, people protest because there is no hot water and respond that it is not a prisoner’s right to enjoy the possibility of taking a proper shower, without freezing. They are crowded together in cells that could accommodate two individuals at most. There is no possibility of receiving re-educational treatment, there is no possibility of working, there is no heating, there is no air conditioning, so that in winter one suffers from the cold and in summer from the heat. Are these conditions perhaps a corollary of the punishment? No, absolutely not, especially when it is intended for a re-educational function and not merely punitive. And so taking one’s life becomes the only chance to escape from hell. We are all guilty, because we do not care at all about what happens there, or worse, we believe, wrongly, that anyone in prison has made a mistake and must pay, so much so that we use expressions such as “rotting in the cell”, “throwing away the key”, a legacy of an era that should be far away but that returns with its regurgitations of legalism and hatred. We are barbaric and uncivilized.
Will the conditions of the prisoners change? No. Politics will not intervene. The directors of the prisons themselves will be able to do something, who have sometimes succeeded, thanks to their sensitivity and love for their work, in transforming some realities into virtuous realities, giving hope to people who had lost it forever. The Bollate prison is one of these realities. I donated a horse to this institution, so that the prisoners could find relief in taking care of a living being. Sometimes I go to lunch at the Bollate prison, which has a restaurant run by the inmates, whose name is very funny, «In galera». Of course, it is funny when you know that you are only passing through there, just for dinner, not to live there day and night.
Dear Walter, I share your every thought and I understand the anger you express. However, allow me to make a few observations, which I hope you will not be offended by. Chico Forti is not privileged. He is an Italian citizen who has spent twenty-five years of his life inside an American prison where life is even harder than the one you have known inside Italian prisons. The right of extradition has always been denied to him until this government intervened, which, thanks to the good international relations woven with great commitment by Prime Minister Meloni, has succeeded in an undertaking that seemed impossible: bringing Chico Forti back to his homeland. Forti had not seen his mother for years and years, allowing him to meet her was not a privilege or a concession, it is a sacrosanct right of Forti. The lady is very old, so Chico was allowed, after years and years, I repeat, to go to his mother for a few hours, a mother from whom he has been far away, being overseas, for decades. Do you really want to take it out on Forti and his alleged privileges? You should look at Chico as a prisoner like you, each with his own personal journey of pain. As for the accusations made against Forti by a mafia individual, who has no credibility whatsoever, I would be careful not to take them for granted. I think they originated from the same feeling of envy and anger that animates you, for which I do not judge you, let it be clear. They wanted to damage Chico because he was seen as a privileged prisoner. There is an ongoing investigation, opening it was a duty, closing it will be just as necessary. A damp squib, useful only to further embitter an already deeply scarred man. What is the point of all this hatred? In short, life is hard for everyone. Prisoners should not fight each other but be aware that they are all in the same boat. I repeat: I do not believe a single syllable of those uttered by the prisoner implicated with the clans who claims that Forti asked him to have the ‘ndrangheta intervene to silence Marco Travaglio and Selvaggia Lucarelli. Chico was confident in semi-liberty, which you are also enjoying and which he never enjoyed in the USA, he had recovered this hope and, with all that he has suffered, what the hell do you want him to care if Travaglio and Lucarelli call him a “murderer”? The result? For accusations without evidence born from the story of a character “skilled” in pretending, as the magistrates themselves define him, the surveillance judges have suspended the right of visitation, meaning Chico will not be able to see or even hear anyone until the investigation is archived.
As for Bozzoli, I don’t know the reasons that led the judges to
believe that Bollate prison is the most suitable for him. In any case, the problem, dear Walter, is not Bozzoli or Chico. The problem is that our prisons are inhuman and existence inside is unbearable for everyone.