The issue of excessive use of force by prison officers is gaining attention in the Italian public debate. The trial for the 2020 violence perpetrated in the ‘Francesco Uccella’ prison in Santa Maria Capua Vetere is underway. In recent years, events in many Italian prisons – including those in Genoa, San Gimignano, Modena, Ferrara, Turin, Ivrea and Bari – have led to the opening of proceedings for abuse of authority, ill-treatment, injury or torture. Regardless of each case’s details, the judiciary and Italian society are becoming aware of a phenomenon that has so far struggled to cross prison walls: in carrying out their duties, prison officers sometimes engage in violent, humiliating and denigrating behavior toward prisoners.

 

However, this is not just an Italian issue. The European Court of Human Rights ruled on the topic several times, prompted by complaints from all over Europe. The Court acknowledged that the use of force may be necessary to maintain order and security in detention facilities. Nevertheless, such force must not be excessive and must not result in a violation of the rights enshrined in Article 3 of the ECHR. Moreover, it pointed out that Article 3 requires that there should be some form of effective official investigation where an individual makes a credible assertion that he or she has suffered ill-treatment, torture and inhuman or degrading treatment at the hands of the police or other similar authorities (ex multis, Artyomov v. Russia, no. 14146/02, 4 October 2010; Bouyid v. Belgium [GC], no. 23380/09, 28 September 2015; Ostroveņecs v. Latvia, no. 36043/13, 5 January 2018; Ochigava v. Georgia, no. 14142/15, 16 February 2023).

The magnitude of the phenomenon prompts questions about the reasons behind the excessive use of force by prison officers and, even before that, the dynamics that characterize prison life. Important as it is, punishing the perpetrators of violent behavior does not exclude the possibility of similar events happening again: guilty officers are not simply “bad apples” but are a sign of issues involving the entire institution. In light of this, a real understanding of the phenomenon requires a thorough analysis of the work of prison officers, considering both the organizational arrangements of prisons and the sensitivity of the officers, as well as the difficulties they face on a daily basis. In other words, only by understanding the professional experience of prison officers can strategies be developed to prevent the illegitimate use of force.

 

This is the starting point of the recent research “PolPen-XXI” undertaken by Prof. Roberto Cornelli in collaboration with the Prison Administration offices of Lombardy, an Italian region. The goal was precisely to investigate prison officers’ perceptions of their work to ground proposals for reform. The research involved 845 prison officers who shared their views on issues related to their work experience, professional orientation, quality of relationships, legitimization by the institution, emotional experience, management of critical events, the readiness to use force, and the Covid-19 emergency.

Looking at the most significant findings, the research first found the bad quality of officers’ relationships with prisoners. In this regard, it is worth mentioning that the work of the prison officer is highly relational: officers interact on a daily basis with colleagues, supervisors, the prison administration and, most importantly, with inmates. As for the officer-prisoner relationship, scholars point out that prison officers’ job is mainly about building “right relationships,” which are crucial to ensuring order and security and fostering rehabilitation of inmates. The officers who participated in the research seem to be aware of this: 70.5% recognize the importance of having a good relationship with inmates for their work, and almost all believe that they must treat inmates with respect for their dignity and explain to them the rules and decisions that affect them. However, some officers report being verbally assaulted by inmates in the past year (63.3% of the sample) and sometimes physically assaulted (15.5% of the sample). In addition, 30.8% of the sample are often victims of disrespect from inmates.

The officers’ relationship with supervisors and the prison administration is also critical in some ways: 89.1% of the sample believe that the administration does not understand the difficulties of prison officers, and 50.3% report that they are not listened to by supervisors when a problem arises at work. In addition, 69.1% say that if they did a good job no one would notice, and 70.9% believe they are always misjudged no matter what they do. Thus, officers seem to feel isolated, abandoned and delegitimized, being alone in facing the difficulties that arise in their work and not seeing their efforts recognized. This is reinforced by the difficulties they face in interpreting prison rules: 61% of the sample report that officers often do not know what rule or procedure to follow so as not to make mistakes, and 41.6% that, when a problem occurs, they do not know who should deal with it or whom to ask.

The research then showed that officers feel quite prepared to deal with critical incidents. However, most officers say they are concerned about dealing with assaults on colleagues, fights between inmates or riots. In short, officers seem to fear violent behavior from inmates. This circumstance is consistent with officers’ widespread fear of victimization: 65.5% of the sample believe that the risk of assault is the worst aspect of prison officers’ work, and 25% say that, when they deal with an inmate, they fear that something unpleasant might happen. The majority of officers believe that more training on handling critical incidents and problematic people would be needed to make their work safer.

 

Finally, the research investigated officers’ readiness to use force, that is, officers’ propensity to use force in critical situations. As mentioned, officers can legitimately use force in carrying out their duties (Art. 41, Law No. 354 of 1975); however, they must do so within certain limits beyond which legitimate force becomes illegitimate violence. These limits are defined in concrete situations and depend on how the officer interprets the critical situation in light of his or her personal and professional experience, as well as social, cultural and institutional expectations concerning his or her actions. On this basis, the “PolPen-XXI” research examined where officers place these limits and whether there are issues with the perception of these limits. In this regard, it was found that 24% of officers believe that force should be used so as not to appear weak; 16.6% believe that force should be used against those who do not obey; 20.8% say that force helps put those who insult an officer in their place; and 12.2% believe that sometimes more force should be used than is strictly necessary to gain respect. These are not very high percentages; however, a statistical summary of the data showed that 36.7% of the sample is open to the use of force in at least one of the four situations mentioned. Thus, a problem emerges in the perception of the limits of the legitimate use of force involving a considerable proportion of the officers who took part in the research. As said above, the definition of these limits is the outcome of an individual choice in which perceptions, feelings, and expectations shaped in organizational, professional and cultural contexts play a crucial role. In this sense, the readiness to use force is also affected by the quality of the relationship between officers and inmates, the feeling of institutional delegitimization and the cultural and professional orientation of the officers. Further investigation for a better understanding of the phenomenon should precisely investigate these aspects.

 

(Focus by Chiara Chisari)

 

Essential bibliography:

 

T.D. Akoensi e J. Tankebe, Prison Officer Self-Legitimacy and Support for Rehabilitation in Ghana, in Criminal Justice and Behavior, 2020, 22

 

A. Bottoms e J. Tankebe, Beyond Procedural Justice: A Dialogic Approach to Legitimacy in Criminal Justice, in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 2012, 119

 

R. Cornelli, La forza di polizia. Uno studio criminologico sulla violenza, Turin, 2020

 

R. Cornelli, Prima indagine sul personale lombardo della Polizia Penitenziaria (PolPen XXI), in Sistema Penale, 2022, online: https://www.sistemapenale.it/it/scheda/cornelli-ricerca-polizia-penitenziaria-lombardia-polpen-xxi.

 

R. Cornelli, Sostenere l’insostenibile. Un’analisi critica delle tesi a supporto della proposta di abrogazione del reato di tortura, in Riv. it. dir. e proc. pen., 2023, 745

 

R. Cornelli e C. Chisari, Gestire l’emergenza nelle carceri: uno studio sulla Polizia Penitenziaria, in P. Pacini Volpe, ed, Il tempo del carcere. Aspetti criminologici e sociologici della prigione attuale. Modelli a confronto tra Francia e Italia, Pisa, 2022, 145

 

E.M. Crawley, Doing Prison Work. The Public and Private Lives of Prison Officers. Portland, 2004

 

E.M. Crawley e P. Crawley, Understanding prison officers: culture, cohesion and conflicts, in J. Bennett, B. Crewe e A. Wahidin, eds, Understanding prison staff, Cullompton, 2008, 134

 

L. Gariglio, ‘Doing’ Coercion in Male Custodial Settings An Ethnography of Italian Prison Officers Using Force, New York, 2018

 

M.L. Griffin, The Influence of Organizational Climate on Detention Officers’ Readiness to Use Force in a County Jail, in Criminal Justice Review, 1999, 1

 

M.L. Griffin, The influence of professional orientation on detention officers’ attitudes toward the use of force, in Criminal Justice and Behavior, 2002, 250

 

K. Kauffman, Prison Officers and Their World, Cambridge, 1988

 

D. Kelly, Punish or reform: Predicting prison staff punitiveness, in Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 2014, 49

 

A. Liebling, Distinctions and Distinctiveness in the Work of Prison Officers: Legitimacy and Authority Revisited, in European Journal of Criminology, 2012, 484

 

A. Liebling, D. Price e G. Shefer, The Prison Officer, London, 2012

 

S.J. Tracy, Il carcere. Potere, paradosso, support sociale e prestigio: un approccio critico al tentativo di affrontare il burnout degli agenti di custodia, in S. Fineman, ed, Le emozioni nell’organizzazione. Il potere delle passioni nei contesti organizzativi, Milan, 2009, 35