Prison and addiction. What are the challenges to maintain therapeutic a care system?

Abstract

The "Arcobaleno" facility for mitigated prison custody of Lorusso e Cutugno Penitentiary in Turin accommodates about 80 patients affected by substance use disorders, capable of joining the provided Community therapeutic program. If, for the penitentiary administration, a prisoner is a detainee, i.e. a person guilty of offences to expiate and who must be supervised and rehabilitated, he/she is a person, who needs an articulated medical and psychosocialeducational treatment, according to the Health Service. This different pont of view leads to carry out distinct styles of treatment and therapy. It is influenced by substantial and uncontrollable risks and intertwines positive aspects with different problems that have always been present in all approaches. The severe, and sometimes almost untreatable, patients, such as these detainees, cause a strong feeling of loss, helplessness and envy to all of those people who take care of them (health personnel and prison warders), who are forced to constantly process these emotions. How can clinic treatment deal with penitentiary system conditions? Is it possible? After due analysis of relational and context dynamics established within a detention facility, the Authors try to give a first answer to the question concerned.