Holidaymakers arriving on the white sands of Pianosa Island off western Italy are welcomed by hosts unlike any others: five prisoners still serving time who help manage a local hotel.
At first sight, there is little to set apart the island, one of seven in the Tuscan archipelago, with its quaint port, schools of fish and waters as turquoise as those in the Indian Ocean around the Maldives.
The concrete wall of a high security prison attests to its past as a penal colony, where mafia bosses considered particularly dangerous were once sent before the prison closed in 1998.
Photo: AFP
However, a handful of convicted criminals are back on Pianosa, earning their keep and rustling up food for tourists thanks to a program started in 2000 by a local cooperative called San Giacomo in conjunction with the prison on nearby Elba Island.
“It’s a really positive initiative. It allows these people to gradually re-integrate into society with a lot less trauma than if they were to leave prison from one day to the next,” the cooperative’s deputy head Brunello De Batte said.
The inmates, each serving a long sentence for undisclosed crimes, have been given contracts to work as barmen, cooks, cleaners, waiters, even gift shop salesmen in the small, 12-room hotel with a bar and restaurant run by the cooperative.
Photo: AFP
Still considered prisoners, they cannot leave the island and are confined at night to special rooms.
Yet “over the years, I’ve seen these prisoners mature, take on responsibilities. They are completely changed compared to when they arrived. They have developed a sense of belonging to a group,” he said.
Filippo, a 32-year-old Sicilian with piercing blue eyes now in his second year working on Pianosa, says the experience has given him a new sense of self-worth and something to work towards.
“Life has given me a second chance. I feel accepted by society once more,” he said, though he added that it is not always easy to win people’s trust.
“People are prejudiced and that’s normal, but I try right away to switch their opinion,” he said as he changed the sheets in the hotel bedrooms.
Pianosa today is a wildlife sanctuary, but also draws visitors who remember it as the fictional setting for the World War II squadron trying to keep sane in Joseph Heller’s satirical novel Catch 22.
Only prisoners who have already served at least two-thirds of their sentence and shown exemplary behavior can apply to take part in the program.
“I want to be able to show customers that I am normal. Just because you’re a prisoner doesn’t mean you have four arms. We are human, and everyone makes mistakes,” he said.
At the port, holidaymakers tuck into fresh fish caught in the island’s pristine waters and prepared by the convicts .
“I think it’s a great initiative. I had a fantastic pasta with red mullet last night,” a 30-something tourist named Benedetto said, as he strolled with his baby son along the deserted dock.
Organizers consider the program a success, notably in offering job training to inmates. There are no official statistics, but they said prisoners have found work upon release, including one now successfully employed as a mason.
The organizers, however, are struggling to keep all going. The tax allowances afforded to cooperatives like San Giacomo have been suspended as Italy fights to battle off the financial crisis.
There has also been a drop in the number of tourists coming to the island, as recession-hit holidaymakers tighten their belts and stay at home. This forced the program last year to reduce the number of prisoners taking part from eight to five.
Filippo says he does not want to think about it going under and laughs off the prospect.
“There is a risk that it will all go down the drain, but if that happens I’ll go rest a bit within the four walls of the prison,” he said.
However, De Batte refuses to give up, saying the San Giacomo group will not only carry on supporting the hotel and restaurant project, but is hoping to open a full-fledged professional training center for prisoners on Pianosa.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last