Tra forma e realtà. Diritti e pre-giudizi penitenziari

The essay addresses the issue of the effectiveness of the rights of detained persons, highlighting how penal execution continues to be permeated by prejudices that affect the full implementation of constitutional principles. Beginning with the recognition of the ownership of rights even in the condition of deprivation of personal liberty, the author denounces the persistence of a repressive conception of punishment that struggles to translate into the principles of humanization and re-education carved in Art. 27, co. 3, Const. The reflection dwells, in particular, on the role of the Constitutional Court in reaffirming the rights of prisoners, even in supplanting legislative inertia, and emphasizes how the full implementation of reeducative finalism presupposes a constitutional culture of punishment that is still largely to be built. Countering the equation between punishment and prison, rejecting stigma, guaranteeing the legality of penal execution: these are the steps needed to restore constitutional meaning to punishment and promote effective social inclusion.