Playing in the jail: sport as pychological tool for inmates

Approximately ten millions people are incarcerated around the world (De Maeyer, 2005, Walmsley, 2005) - 400.000 throughout the European Union-, living in places known as prisons where they spend the whole day, sometimes for a long part of their lives. «Odious solution» (Foucault, 1977, 252) prisons have a double function: they protect society from offenders by defending the social peacefulness; they discipline inmates with the purpose to make them able to correctly behave in the society they belong to. Indeed, «prison is a disciplinary comprehensive apparatus» (Foucalt, op. cit.) that controls all individual aspects and disciplines delinquent in their habits and customs; it educates body and mind and should make individuals able to behave without compromising the social contract. However, in many cases, this apparatus is translated into reality with a system that contains individuals: prison teaches prisoners to unlearn and to be passive; everything is scheduled, the whole day is programmed and few occasions to be active are provided. Moreover, all these problems are further exacerbated by a growing trend toward an increase of the general prison population (Walmsley, 2005) and a high rate of recidivism with individuals released that commit again criminal acts and get into a second or third incarceration. Finally, the implementation of effective rehabilitative programs is contrasted by financial and logistic difficulties. Under these circumstances, a new model approach to cope with inmates seems required and new strategies should be undertaken. Thus, a correct framework of intervention should be articulated twofold: from the one hand, it should be committed to reducing the rate of antisocial behavior and the number of incarcerations; from the other hand, time in prison, should be spent to undertake specific programs aimed at rehabilitating inmates and setting the right conditions to make them able to be part of the society they belong to. In addition, financial problems and lack of funds experienced by many prisons should be solved by using low-cost and efficient solutions. The study carried out wants to provide evidences about the role that sport and physical activity based programs might have in the model approach shortly described. In fact, they might be efficient tools both to prevent anti-social behavior (i.e. before the incarceration) as well as to enhance the effectiveness of well-structured rehabilitative and educational programs committed to improve the general inmates’ well-being during their stay in prison and to facilitate their (re)entry in the society (during and after the incarceration). Although there has not been a specific research on sport in prison, but only brief reflections on the subject (Gras, 2005, Capuano & Vanzi, 1988), to the purpose besides a review of pertinent literature offering a general understanding of the social and educational value of sport activities, the author undertook a qualitative analysis concerning a specific case study. The focus is on a sport based program for inmates called <<Porte Aperte>> (Open Doors) and implemented by the Italian Union of Sport for All (Uisp), one of the main entities for the promotion of sport in Italy. According to Yin (2005) the framework of investigation has been based on the single case designs and data collected come from a multidimensional approaches encompassing documentary analysis, in-depth interviews (n=10) and participant observation. The analysis of data collected has been carried out with the software known as «Atlas.ti».