Cagliari, prison life: the State Archives hold a history of Sardinian penitentiaries.
A meeting dedicated to the penitentiary systems between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and to the presentation of the studies conducted on the thousands of files analysed
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The book “Penitentiary Institutions between the 19th and 20th Centuries. Doctrine, Legislation, and Application,” edited by Cristina Ciancio , Giuseppe Conti , Giuseppina De Giudici , Marco Pignotti , and Marcello Schirru , was presented in the conference room of the State Archives of Cagliari. It is the second of two works resulting from the Project of Significant National Interest (PRIN) “Punish, Amend, Reinstate. Penal Institutions: Criminal Science, Penitentiary Law, Prison Administration, Labor, Sanitary Treatment, and Architecture: Three Case Studies on the “Island of Punishments” during the Kingdom of Italy (the San Bartolomeo Penal Bath, the Castiadas Penal Colony, and the Buoncammino Prison),” funded by the Ministry of Education, University, and Research, with the University of Cagliari as the lead partner.
The meeting provided an opportunity to explore, in a fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue, issues related to penitentiary systems between the 19th and 20th centuries, detention models, penitentiary law, and the re-educational treatment of prisoners. This included reflections, in light of historical sources, on the relationship between past and present and on the evolution of the law.
The importance of prison archives and their fundamental role in historical research, new analyses, and studies of our past and present was also reiterated.
Thanks to collaboration with the Regional Penitentiary Administration Office, the documentary heritage of the State Archives of Cagliari has been enriched with significant acquisitions , distinguished by their quantity and quality: 48,000 prisoner files, thousands of files relating to prison staff, approximately 4,000 registers of prison matriculations and administrative documents, and 150 linear meters of loose papers. This collection of documents, of immense historical and human importance, thanks to projects financially supported by the Directorate-General for Archives of the Ministry of Culture, today presents itself to the community as a resource of fundamental civic awareness and social consciousness.
