Looking Inward or Outward? An Italian Experience of Prisoners’ Involvement in Governance through Participatory Budgeting

Abstract

The article refers to an experimental project called “Idee in fuga” (“Ideas on the run” or “Fleeing Ideas”) which, for the first time, tried to adapt a model of actor-based participatory budgeting (PB) to a detention center environment, namely that of the “open-cell” prison of Milan – Bollate. The democratic practice – aimed to involve inmates in the governance of part of the decision making on their living environment’s transformations - is read in the light of the results of the filtering and voting phases, which happened between April 2019 and September 2020. The focus on the 58 proposals, and their transformation into 10 more polished projects, includes their organization in clusters, which are referred to ideas focussed (1) on the transformation of internal facilities, (2) on programmes intended to bridge with the “future life of inmates after the end-of-sentence”, and (3) on transformations in the governance or regulations of the prisons. The visible difference between the types of proposals emerged in male and female wards (and more supported in each one) is discussed, in the light of the role played by the disparities of physical and organizational conditions between the different sections of the prisons.