Ossigeno

25 Behind walls as high as those of a castle, but with barbed wire. Overcoming an apparently always equal string of heavy armoured doors, operated by a guard. In the far from welcoming arms of the law. Worked by the hands of women and men made invisible to the flowing world, deprived of days, months or years, of freedom, one cannot even imagine how much good lies inside. I must confess: I myself would not even have suspected it, if I had not accepted Ossigeno 's invitation to enter prison for the first time in my life, discovering first of all that being able to visit one is everything but easy. Naples - The first question is point-blank put to me by Imma: « Do you have precedents? ». And I feel embarrassed like a lady whose age someone asks in public. «You know, it's not that obvious», she continues. «Sometimes, even people who say no maybe have a police detention, a little precedent, and getting them in with us becomes difficult». Imma Carpiniello , 45-year-old Neapolitan woman graduate in Political Science, for two years was the chairwoman of Freedhome , a network of Italian social cooperatives engaged in re-education projects born within prison institutions, with the aim of creating real work and craft products of the highest quality, capable in some cases of winning international prizes of excellence . From the Apulian taralli prepared by Campo dei Miracoli inside the Trani Correctional Facility, to the bread baked by Brutti e Buoni in the Brissogne Prison, in Aosta; from the Sicilian pastry preparations by Dolci Evasioni in the Syracuse Jail, to those based on almonds, pistachios and hazelnuts by Sprigioniamo Sapori , at the Prison of Ragusa; from the high-quality baked goods of Cotti in Fragranza , inside the Malaspina Juvenile Prison in Palermo, to the Neapolitan coffee by Lazzarell e in Pozzuoli, which Imma still coordinates. «Working in prison is not that easy, the difficulties are many, that’s the reason why – she says – the Freedhome network was created, which became a distribution point, but also a way to present ourselves to the Ministry of Justice as a single entity, starting from the common issues. Freedhome was born to represent and aggregate 13 common experiences of female and male prisons, from the correctional facility to the high security jail. There was even a coop engaged with prisoners inside the penitentiary police school». It was , preterit tense, because, as Imma makes clear from down under her black curls: « We all feel the need for something that could represent us, but it's complicated ». And social cooperatives, small and tenacious like her, resisted until the exhaustion of Freedhome's experience, which took place last year. Now, they are working to relaunch. For instance, Imma is ready to give birth to a bistro in the heart of Naples, within the Galleria Principe, a stone's throw from the Academy of Fine Arts, starting from the Lazzarelle’s coffee roasting project in Pozzuoli. And, as Imma herself points out, though lacking «a container of experiences capable of deciding a collective course of action», as the last chairwoman of this officially dissolved network, she does not stop helping anyone whoever asks her. Her twenty- year commitment was born by participating in women's prisons in the activities of the Antigone Observatory 4 , organization dealing since 1998 with the rights and guarantees of the penal system in our Country. «When you enter a prison – she tells me – you always tend to ask a question to the prisoners: “What are you lacking of?" And they tell you children, affections, of course, but then they add: working . And you wonder why. This inspired in me a series of questions about what ‘job’ meant to them, and how important it would have been to bring a cooperative to prison. Because normally, until we created a coop inside it, people were always talking in terms of working outside the prison, and never in terms of working inside it ». «And working was needed, it was needed for various reasons. First of all because the prisoners needed money. Because today you need money, to stay in jail . For a number of things that the national prison administration doesn't give you. Trivially: sanitary napkins. We are women, every month we have to buy pads». The prison does not provide them? «No». What if you don't have the money? «If you don't have a family outside supporting you, you have to work for inmates inside, creating a hierarchy. So: I cook, I make your bed, I wash your clothes, in return you give me a sanitary napkin, a cigarette, and so on». Is the prison economy based on this kind of barter? «The informal one. Because even to stay in prison there is a maintenance cost», Imma explains. « To stay in prison, you have to pay not only the cost of living, but also money to the State, for your bedside, the use of water, that of light, your food ». The Copernican revolution of my knowledge starts to make me dizzy; I ask: but how? So, isn't it, as we all think, that prison relieves you of thoughts, and they give you food and accommodation paid by the State? «No», Imma says firmly. «You have to pay for everything. And if you don't pay, you leave prison with a debt that is on average 60 euros a month. Multiplied by the months of the sentence. In addition to an executive tax demand as soon as you step outside. You go out with a double handicap: the stigma of the prisoner and that of the debt ». So, if the inmate has a property... «Yes, it becomes a foreclosure; or, if you have a job, part of your paycheck is held in advance, as it happens for our inmates». Thus, they are lucky... «Yes, at least they have time to breathe». And how many inmates are now locked up in Pozzuoli? «It is a fluctuating number. The Pozzuoli prison has a capacity of 98 people and a tolerance of 130; currently, there are 190». Rome - It’s only thanks to Imma's decades of experience, after less than a month, that I will be able to get into the Pozzuoli Prison, but not before having touched down Rome, to make sure that the highly ethical mission of finding a legal place in the society for those who have been in jail, corresponds an equally high quality. At the Vale la Pena 5 pub, based in Rome, I can get the first proof. Late evening arrival, in Eurialo street, behind the Furio Camillo metro station; Stephanie, a beautiful thirty- year-old woman in charge at the front together with her boyfriend Massimo, welcomes me. The beer I choose, Vale la Pena's Pils, is a classic blonde refreshing the palate, but there is a good variety of commercial craft beers and another one produced in prison, at the Saluzzo Penalty Institute: Pausa Caffè 6 . To wait on me the Pils I ordered is Oscar La Rosa , soul of the rebirth of this place closed for a few months, that he decided to reopen, bringing us not only the beer that gives the place its name, but also all the better products of the prison economy. Oscar is 32 years old, tall and robust, with long red hair and glasses, and he explains to me that he is not only concerned with the pub. He has been 4 www.antigone.it 5 trans. It’s worth the sentence . 6 trans. Coffee Break .