[Treatment of unconvicted prisoners. Variations on a theme]

Judiciary practice, recently encouraged by legislative provisions, has for some time been, distortedly, attributing to preventive custody the characteristic features of a punishment in advance, and the effects of this as seen in the penitentiary display a complementary doublenes of aspect. On the one hand, the tendency by the reform bill of 1975 to the general privileging of those sentenced with respect to those accused, this being borne out by a common usage that is not, however, always justified by the dictates of the law, prevents the adoption of more advantagious measures for the accused persons. On the other hand, this situation contributes to a further exasperation of the afflictions of detention for those for whom the supposition of their presumed innocence should give rise to concrete, and not merely formal, effects. The need derives from this for a greater attention on the part of prison personnel that must be given to the treatment of those not definitively sentenced, considering that the very reform law leaves space for action in this direction, as well for the purpose of more definitely characterizing a professional attitude aimed at putting the penal institution back in touch with policies in which the traditional repressive and punitive essence is gradually replaced by a new and original dimension of socialization.