 Does the “Open- Cell Regime” foster Inmates’ Legal Capability? Evidence from two Italian PrisonsLucia Dalla Pellegrina and Margherita Saraceno No 433, Working Papers from University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics Abstract: This study is a first attempt to map non-criminal legal needs of prisoners by means of a peer-setting survey. The investigation has been carried out in 2014 in two Italian prisons. Evidence shows that prisoners’ legal needs are mainly related to family law matters, property law issues and administrative procedures, including release and renewal of documents. We test the general hypothesis according to which imprisonment by itself represents a recurrent cause to give up trying to solve legal problems. We focus, in particular, on the introduction of the open-cell regime to identify the effects of isolation due to imprisonment on the frequency of problem resolution. We also investigate how inmates’ specific characteristics (being a foreigner or waiting for a first-instance judgment), on the one hand, and prison-specific characteristics, on the other hand, affect the capacity of prisoners to manage their pending legal issues (legal capability). This contributes to debate about detention conditions as an important part of European Union justice policy. Keywords: Access to justice; legal needs; prison (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mib:wpaper:433 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Working Papers from University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC. |
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