process for prison detainees to be re-educated and be given back the chance to have personal dignity. Pettitti denounces the many inconveniences which are a cause of the immorality and impiety which obstruct the success of the religious and moral instruction imparted to detainees, as required by law, in all the prisons. He emphasises the absolute necessity and pressing need of a prison reform.75 He lists “the basic subjects” which are called on to regulate life in a truly corrective penal institution. He concludes with the last one No. 15: “Finally there is no doubt that the moral and religious instruction, if continuously provided, will revive the sentiments instilled in them at an early age, sentiments about any good principle, long forgotten, and at last turn those perverted souls towards what is good”.76 Then he deals, in detail, with every type of prison.
In a 'preventive prison', moral instruction will either not exist or be inadequate without the contribution of religious instruction. Religious instruction would be imperfect if it were not accompanied by a strict observance of all the practices of worship which every good Christian should attend to. The quantity and quality of these worship practices are relevant. In the 'repressive prison', the anticipated demands are similar and even greater. Intensive and personalised care is championed for “correctional or penitentiary institutions, with the addition of an accurately chosen, prudent, and perceptive chaplain”.77 He had also called attention, once again, to some ways which might make religious practices more attractive.
Religious materials should be distributed in such a way as to make them suitable to the age and condition of detainees. So, while we want to avoid the danger of alienating the minds of young people from religious sentiment by making religious services too long and therefore boring or a cause of distraction; we should also try to make these worthy practices of worship, something palatable for these inexperienced hearts. And, therefore, we should call upon ecclesiastics, who are intelligent, with a high prestige, and the greatest amount of gentleness, mixed with a necessary firmness.78
Don Bosco has an intensely religious section in his 1877 'preventive system' publication. He first proposed some fundamental expressions of Catholic worship, and then remarked: “never force the boys to frequent the Sacraments... let the beauty grandeur and holiness of the Catholic religion be dwelt on.”79
Pettitti, furthermore, related the effectiveness of religious education to the personality of the chaplain and dedicated a paragraph of his work to the 'qualities and duties of the chaplain':
The chaplain’s task is a very important one, much like the one of the Director. As a matter of fact the initial thrust for any drive to keep the rules and correct oneself really starts from the chaplain…
The ecclesiastical superior should be wise enough to be cautious in proposing (as a chaplain) only a person endowed with intelligent zeal, with evangelical charity, with a firm and yet free and easy character, with much ability to work, with deep knowledge, of mature age, with a dignified look and capable of winning over the confidence and respect of
75 C.I. Petitti di Roreto, Della condizione attuale delle carceri in Opere scelte, vol. I, 349-351, 358-359-
76 ibid, vol I, 491; cf 489-493. He points to three advantages of corrective education: “1. impossibility of further
corruption of the detainees, 2. greater possibility that they will contract habits of obedience and work, and becoming
peaceful, useful citizens, and 3. probability, though minor, of radical reform (Ibid, 493).
77 C.I. Petitti di Roreto, vol I, 519-526, 536-537.
78 ibid 2,485.
79 Il sistema preventivo (1877), 54, OE XXVIII 432.