The educational dimension of penal execution inside and outside prison walls: Treatment approaches between annihilation and rehabilitation of incarcerated individuals

Educational dimension of penal execution of adults. Challenges and Directions Emerging from the ContributionsIssue 3/2025 of Form@reis published at a critical moment for recent developments in Italian penitentiary policies. The fiftieth anniversary of the Prison Law (Legge 26 july1975, n. 354) represented a missed opportunity to reflect on the possibility of genuine changes in detention conditions and in the educational quality of imprisonment.For this reason, Form@re launched this call for contributions with the aim of fostering reflection on the various critical issues and potential areas from which to initiate paths of meaningful renewal, at least within the scientific debate. The attempt has been made.This issue brings together essays (research articles and practice-based contributions) that offer a range of perspectives. All of them approach prison and custodial settings –for both juveniles and adults –as organisational and educational devices that generate educational effects, both positive and negative, as well as identity-related, relational, and symbolic consequences for people deprived of liberty at every stage of penal execution and in the everyday life of detention. Participation alone is insufficient to ensure learning from an emancipatory perspective: “Contrasted with the participation objective is a different parameter focused on the individual and social future consequences of the learning processes in which each adult is involved.” (Federighi, Torlone, De Maria, 2025, p. 504).