I work in prison. Cartabia and Colao sign memorandum with 9 companies

Offering professional opportunities, training specialized skills and promoting the social reintegration of prisoners: it is on the basis of these objectives that it was signed today by the Minister of Justice, Marta Cartabia, and by the Minister for Technological Innovation and Digital Transition, Vittorio Colao, the Memorandum of Understanding "Prison Labor".

The project, the result of the collaboration between the Ministry of Justice and the Department for digital transformation, identifies work as one of the key tools for the social reintegration of prisoners and offers them paid professional opportunities and specialized training in the Tlc and Ict sectors.

The activities envisaged by the memorandum will initially develop in two specific areas: a project for the regeneration of network terminal equipment, to which the companies Fastweb, Linkem, Tiscali, Sky, Telecom Italia, Vodafone and Windtre have already joined; a project for the construction of telecommunications access networks with Open Fiber, Sielte and Sirti.

Collaboration with prisons is however open to all operators in the sector who wish to join. It will be carried out through the development of training programs for the acquisition of skills by inmates and programs of selection and job placement, inside and outside the prison. At the end of the training, the inmates will be employed with a salary equal to that provided by the collective labor agreements. In addition, companies that will hire prisoners inside prisons, or who work outside, will be able to obtain a tax credit for each worker hired, as required by law. The locations of the laboratories identified so far are: Bologna, Cagliari, Catania, Frosinone, Lecce, Milan, Turin and Rome.

Regeneration of network terminal equipment

This project on the reconditioning of disused network modems from homes provides for the construction of a laboratory within prisons by companies. Following this, the hiring methods will be left to the evaluations of the companies that will be able to use the resources directly or through local social enterprises, after a three-week training course. The overall potential of this area is around 200 people employed. At the moment he is already active in the prisons of Lecce and Rome-Rebibbia thanks to the initiative of Linkem Spa.

Realization of telecommunication access networks

This initiative foresees that inmates can also work outside the prison, to install and join the fiber optic networks. The companies will be able to train inmates through six-week courses and then employ them, following a selection process that provides for the voluntary participation of the inmate, interviews by the psychologists of the DAP, in addition to the resolution of the Supervisory Magistrate. On this front, a total of 2326 inmates were identified with the potential personal and legal requirements able to work also outside. The first phase of the project will have an experimental character on three institutes that will be able to train about 100 prisoners in six weeks.

"Work is an essential feature of the constitutional face of the sentence. I thank Minister Colao for having wanted to involve the prisoners in this great project of digital transformation of the country and I thank the companies for the sensitivity shown. This is a far-reaching and equally complex project, but with benefits for all: for the prison administration, which offers work in a strategic sector; for prisoners, who start their own reintegration into society; for companies, which can train skilled labor to hire. Ultimately, it is a project that benefits the entire country, of which the prison is a mirror: investing in the quality of detention is in fact equivalent to investing in the community.”Declared the Minister of Justice, Marta Cartabia.

"First of all, I want to thank the numerous companies in the private sector for having participated with conviction in this project, demonstrating a high social sensitivity that will allow many men and women to have a precious opportunity for their future social reintegration. Today together with Minister Marta Cartabia we are launching an initiative that can also be replicated by companies in other sectors and will bring benefits both to companies that want to participate and to prisoners with new training opportunities and professional opportunities inside and outside Italian institutions.”Declared the Minister for Technological Innovation and Digital Transition, Vittorio Colao.

I work in prison. Cartabia and Colao sign memorandum with 9 companies