Florence, the home for inmate mothers? Perhaps it is leaving, perhaps it is already old
No more children in prison. The Chamber gives the first step to the bill that aims to promote the model of foster homes for inmates so that their children can grow up away from bars. Now the law will go to the Senate. Good news also for the Sollicciano prison, where there are currently no children but the children of some inmates are living there. Florence had applied to lead the way on homes for detained mothers, with a protocol signed in January 2010 by the Ministry of Justice, the Region (which allocates 400,000 euros, which later became 700,000), the Supervisory Court, the Institute of Innocenti and the Madonnina del Grappa, which had made available a building in via Fanfani. Twelve years later, however, of the institute with attenuated custody for inmate mothers, acronym Icam, not even the shadow.
The building in via Fanfani that should host it sinks into decay. And some children continue to grow up in Sollicciano. Yet, the realization of the Icam has been repeatedly announced and claimed by politics. In 2013 it was the then Minister of Justice Annamaria Cancellieri, on a visit to the Sollicciano penitentiary, to guarantee that within a year the structure for inmates would be inaugurated. The ICAM is now under construction. Words of pride also came from the then mayor Matteo Renzi: We were the first in Italy to have made the ICAM. In 2020 it was another minister of justice, this time Alfonso Bonafede, who said: The main objective remains the realization of the ICAMs throughout the national territory, therefore also in Florence.
Among the many quibbles that blocked the start of the works, there seems to have been that of a technical error in the tender, which must be repeated. Responsible for the works is the Health Society. June – now says Sara Funaro, councilor for social policies Within the Municipality of Florence and president of the Health Society – the executive planning of the restructuring will be made, during the summer the tender will be made and by September the works will start, which They must conclude by 2024. And then: Well the approval of the bill in the House, children must grow up outside the prison.
To present an answer for the yes to the law and for the prospect of the commencement of humanitarian work which has never materialized. Now we hope that this structure will see the light because it is a shame to raise children in prison, and the fact that the political and humanitarian step is also important from which to draw consequences also on the territories.
But there is another news that could reshuffle the cards and question the birth of the institute with attenuated custody for detained mothers. At the instigation of the Ministry of Justice, the Tuscany Region is activating some places for detained mothers with children in already existing family homes that welcome mothers in socio-economic difficulties.
An idea also shared by the guarantor of the members of Florence Eros Cruccolini: The ICAM is an outdated idea because the inmates must be placed in existing family homes, only in this way is true inclusion created, it would be important to reconvert the resources that originally they were intended for ICAM in the reception in already active family homes, as well as being a more inclusive project it would also be less expensive.
June 2, 2022 | 07:22
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