The Professional Training of the Italian Surveillance Magistracy

Abstract

The Italian prison system is characterized by a sort of schizophrenia (Ferrajoli, 2000) due to two opposite principles of legal framework: the certainty of sentence and the re-educative purpose of imprisonment. The action of the Surveillance Judge (Magistrato di sorveglianza) – a relevant authority for the enforcement of a criminal judgment – takes its place in the heart of such tension. In fact, he must ensure a right implementation of the sentence and, at the same time, he has to attend that the sentence serving is realized in accordance with penal rules and, particularly, with the re-educative aim. Therefore this study will highlight the importance of professional training for serving sentences judges whose educational programming would provide for inputs of criminology and victimology studies. They supply the Surveillance Magistracy (Magistratura di sorveglianza) with cognitive tools to identify the right treatment program for the convicted personality and to promote a mediation process between offenders and victims.