The word, from which an evident bitterness shines through, that the Attorney General of the Republic, Dr. Luigi Riello and the Chief Prosecutor of the Republic at the Juvenile Court of Naples, dott.ssa De Luzenberger, they pronounced on the occasion of the inauguration of the new judicial year, perfectly convey the complexity of the phase we are experiencing but, paradoxically they hearten us because they make us feel less alone in our daily battles for the rights of minors to have services suited to their needs. Dr. De Luzenberger denounced in her speech “that the juvenile issue is certainly not resolved. Not much has been done compared to the past for reclamation and social recovery. Episodes emerge that reveal indifference to the rigors of the law and hatred towards representatives of the State”.
Strong words but which convey well the state of abandonment of many young people orphaned by a welfare system suited to their needs. It should be noted that none, At present, can propose a panacea, pulling a rabbit out of a hat and resolving an issue that is long-standing and complex. However, a delay in politics and politicians is undeniable which does not materialize only due to cuts in social spending but, and it is much more serious, in the now proclaimed inability to act in support of those projects that arise from below, of those forms of association organized to stem the educational and social crisis of the neighborhoods most exposed to the domination of the Camorra.
The inability, or more likely lack of will, to reward meritocracy, and therefore those who invest in the innovation of models and interventions. In this historical phase, talking about minors who commit crimes means talking about the services that are given responsibility for their recovery. And talking about services means talking about the communities managed by the accredited social private sector which represent the fulcrum, the center of the recovery and inclusion policies implemented by juvenile justice.
And us, community workers, workers on the educational frontier and in the care of minors and deviant young people in conflict with justice, we feel the full weight of this inaction, of this absence, of the absence of those who limit themselves to proclamations when it is convenient.
Because an arduous task becomes an impossible mission if the proclamations made at conferences are not followed by facts. And the facts tell us about social policies in favor of minors which should be made with economic investments adequate for the services to be provided. The facts, who are stubborn, they tell us about private social workers who in their relationships with public colleagues are treated like children of a lesser god. This is a first note to reflect on for the future: to make services up to the tasks they have to carry out, it is necessary to overcome this public - private social dichotomy and reaffirm that culture of subsidiarity and complementarity of roles that has been lost in recent years.
The facts tell us about an offer of communities that exceeds demand with accreditation criteria crushed on formal qualifications and where history, field experience are secondary. The communities, in fact, they are in competition with each other and their weakness in the relationship with the public client ends up transforming collaboration into subservience.
Reality, which is highlighted once again by the words we reported previously, "photographs" institutions that do not stimulate changes, who refuse to question that model – that “totem” – pedagogical built on formal equality which does not take into account differences and prevents the experimentation of new models which instead take into account the diversity and specificity of the problems of minors in the penal area.
We are experiencing an epochal change in the broad sense where the transformations (due for example to technology or the pandemic itself) they follow one another at a rapid pace and we respond to you still using the method “Montessori” for a phenomenon, that of juvenile deviance, which in Naples has specific peculiarities that do not allow it to be "overlapped" with what happens in other contexts, in other territories.
The quintessence of these specificities are the murals of minors sanctified as martyrs because they were killed in a firefight with the police during serious criminal actions. The bitterness for this state of affairs is all in the intervention made by the Attorney General Riello, when he talks about the defeat of civil society.
The hope is that those words also reach the consciences of politicians and public bureaucrats. The death of two boys, besides the pain, we should also ask ourselves about the circumstances that produced it and in which it occurred, otherwise you run the risk of this pain returning. But too often that hope is betrayed. We have witnessed an ideological clash between opposing sides regarding the murals, factions moved by preconceived positions which in effect are an integral part of the problem that has always influenced political choices, more interested in seeking consensus than in solving problems.
We must realize that we no longer have many opportunities for intervention in front of us, that we are wasting time and that the time has come to seriously ask ourselves where we went wrong, dove, each with their own responsibilities, he's making a mistake even now.
It is clear that the disinvestment in minors in the criminal area that the Ministry of Justice and the Campania Region have carried out in recent years has been massive and has caused a drop in the quality of services and a strong precariousness of work which prevents us from looking to the future. This precariousness, to which we have gradually become accustomed, it has reduced us to silent and passive surrender. Ma, for the sake of truth, it must also be said that in this weakness there are also the limits and responsibilities of the communities, who have not been able to protect and safeguard the very choice of working in community from the attack of the market; a choice dictated by that passion, ethical and social, which represents the added value to the experience, to the competence and professionalism of the people who "live" within the communities.
These limits, serious in themselves, of communities, However, they cannot overshadow the responsibilities that concern our institutional partners - Juvenile Justice, Campania region. Responsibility that, as we have already had the opportunity to underline, they do not only concern the cutting of economic resources but concern programming, the innovation of models with overcoming, or better, with the experimentation of a take-over that exceeds the quotas established by regional legislation (quotas that provide for the co-presence of children in the same structure, minors in the penal area, minors subjected to administrative measures etc.), the quality of services, meritocracy.
We think that for these institutional partners it is urgent, the start of a new phase can no longer be postponed, of attention and listening to those voices that rise from the border and which until now have remained unheard, ignorance. Perhaps starting from those tools that are already available, like those provided by Dr. Roberto Di Bella who, starting from a reflection on the minors "children of the ndrangheta", produced a model, “free to choose”, which is certainly "breaking" but has an innovative charge and an absolutely relevant perspective.
Vincenzo Morgera – Silvia Ricciardi – Giovanni Salomone – Jonathan Association
