signature to all of the above.369
7. Correctional education: somewhere between preventive and repressive
Don Bosco might have had an understanding of the antithesis between prevention and repression and also of the need that they be combined in an institution destined to provide correctional education, when he was in touch with the Generala, a prison for minors. Count Carlo Ilarione Petitti of Roreto had vigorously fought to have the young men detained there separated from the adults. He had done this in a work already cited: Della condizione attuale delle carceri e dei mezzi per migliorarla. This suggestion began to find fulfillment with R. Patenti when Carlo Alberto gave his approval, on February 9, 1839. According to the Royal Brief of April 12, 1845, modified activities in the prisons had their beginning.
The Brothers of the Congregation of St Peter in Chains, from Marseille, a Congregation founded by Canon Charles Fissiaux (1806-1867) for the apostolate among the juvenile offenders, were called upon to act as educators at the Generala. The chaplain of the Generala was a diocesan priest mostly in charge of the religious and moral education of the detainees.370
Don Bosco had definite contacts with the Generala, even though not all of them can be documented, as will be clearly indicated in Chapter 10 of this book. The Generala hosted young men condemned to correctional punishment because they had committed some thoughtless crime and also young men detained because they needed fatherly correction.371 The correctional method used with them was to get them to work together and in silence and at night they were segregated into cells. The system of correctional education called for the blending of different ways of dealing with the detainees: preventive, coercive and corrective. This was demonstrated not only in the practical activity of the Brothers, but also in theory formulated by their founder who was occasionally there with the local director.
Petitti of Roreto had figured this out ahead of time when he wrote of prisons for young rascals both “for detainees sent to prison at the request of their parents to be paternally corrected” and for “young people unwilling to work and vagabonds arrested by the police and condemned to prison by penal courts”. “The basic general principle”, Petitti wrote, “is to use a new, firm, severe educational method but with a touch of fatherly indulgence, especially for those detained at the request of their parents and needing correction. The educational method to be used on these young people should be more civil. The others instead need a more severe approach and they should also be directed towards learning a trade.”372
The ideas inspiring this approach can be drawn from the Rapport given by Fissiaux at the end of the first and second years of activity at the Generala. Especially relevant are those in the report on the first year of activity. “The house of correctional education” in regard to the young delinquents has the task of preparing them for a better future, saving them from shipwreck, punishing them, for sure, but also and above all correcting them”.373
369 “L’uomo dal “grande cuore” all’uomo che “pensa in grande”: appears to be the inspiration behind a wise comment by
R. Lanfranchi, “Rosmini-Don Bosco: istanze pedagogico-educative di un rapporto”, in Rivista di scienze
dell’educazione 35 (1997): 277-293
370 On the Generala, cf. A. Lonni, “Il penitenziario industriale-agricolo della ‘Generala’. Trattamento del minor deviante
nel Piemonte preunitario”, in Bollettino storico-bibliografico subalpino 82 (1984) 391-424; R. Audisio, La ‘Generala’
di Torino, Esposte, discoli, minori corrigendi (1845-1850). Santena, Fondazione Camillo Cavour 1987, 236 pages; C.
Felloni and R. Audisio. I giovani discoli, in Torino e Don Bosco, ed. Giuseppe Bracco, vol 1 Saggi. (Turin: City
Archive, 1989) 99-119.
371 Società Reale per patrocinio dei giovani liberati dalla Casa d’educazione correzionale. (Turin: Boscco 1847). Don
Bosco was amongst the first members of the society: cf. R. Audisio, L ‘Generala’ di Torino, 210.
372 C. I. Pettiti di Roreto, Della condizione, in Opere Scelte, vol 1, 546.
373 Rapport sur les premiers résultats obtenus dans la Maison d’éducation correctionnelle pour les jeunes détenus du