Without a doubt, the much-desired rehabilitation and reintegration into society is not guaranteed for everyone, but what can be done is to actively contribute to making it happen, and if not in the interest of the prisoner, at least in the interest of society itself, which needs all its members to share the same universe of values and surely a smaller number of criminals. Perhaps it could be helpful to remember the words of the Dalai Lama: “We are all potential wrongdoers, and deep in their souls, those we put in prison are no worse than any of us. They have succumbed to ignorance, desire, anger, illnesses from which we too suffer, though to a different extent. Our duty is to help them heal.”
Bridging the gap between the world of prisons and that of free men is certainly not an easy task: prison law is, in fact, a controversial discipline, constantly debated and evolving. But Francesca Madonna, in her book “The Rights of Detainees and Internees and Their Judicial Protection,” does not speak only of law; she speaks to us of lives. Originally written as a legal text, its clarity makes it accessible even to the less experienced reader, who will, in fact, have the wonderful opportunity to enrich their cultural knowledge. Over the years and centuries, lawmakers have not always acted with the awareness that a crime cannot shatter a man’s dignity, and all too often efforts have been made to circumvent the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of everyone, including detainees. But it is thanks to personalities of the caliber of our author that the fight against the dehumanization of prisoners continues relentlessly; that, despite their rehabilitation and reintegration into society still being distant goals, we can still dream of a better tomorrow.