Prisons

Convict-Actors Recite Dante

November 27, 2021 By Hannah Raisner, FSU '25

“Three long-term convicts turned actors who appeared in the Taviani brothers’ prison-set Caesar Must Die Shakespearian film drama are to get out of jail for three hours to recite Dante’s Inferno at a Rome university symposium Thursday marking the 700th anniversary of the Supreme Poet’s death.

“Filippo, Giovanni and Francesco, serving lengthy terms for criminal association in the mafia wing of Rebibbia Prison, will be special guests at the event organized by the pontifical Dante commission.

“The three men said they hoped the three hours would be long enough for them to ‘see the stars again’ like Dante does when he emerges from the pit of Hell.” –ANSA, November 23, 2021

Review: “Refuge in Hell”

July 26, 2019 By Gabriel Siwady '19

“While studying theology as a Jesuit scholastic, I was blessed to have James Keenan, S.J., as a teacher. Father Keenan taught that sin in the Gospels is always about not bothering to love. The clearest example of this is found in Matthew 25, where Jesus says those who never bothered to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick or visit the imprisoned are condemned to hell for their indifference to human suffering.

“Perhaps nowhere in our contemporary culture in the United States is the contrast between Christian love and hellish indifference more stark than in our prison system. In Refuge in Hell, the Rev. Ronald Lemmert, a prison chaplain, offers us a glimpse of the price one pays to follow the Gospel of Christ, taking the reader on a Dante-esque journey through the circles of hell in a modern-day ‘Inferno,’ Sing Sing Correctional Facility.” […] –George Williams, America Magazine, November 16, 2018

Prisons in Venezuela: “The Fifth Circle of Hell”

July 11, 2019 By Gabriel Siwady '19

“The standoff at El Rodeo has drawn attention to the conditions of Venezuela’s prisons, which Hugo Chávez, the president, has famously called “the gateway to the fifth circle of hell.” When he was inaugurated in 1999—five years after the end of his own jail stint for leading an attempted coup—22,000 inmates were crammed into prisons built for 17,000. Mr Chávez promised a “humanisation” programme.” [. . .] —The Economist, July 14, 2011

Robert A. Ferguson, Inferno: An Anatomy of American Punishment (2014)

July 21, 2016 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

Columbia Law professor Robert A. Ferguson published a study of the theory informing American systems of punishment in penal institutions. Calling for a new model that emphasizes correction over condemnation, Ferguson writes, “Punishment is a reflexive response to misbehavior, and punishers in their anger are always spontaneously at the ready. Rehabilitation requires thought, a plan, work, and the willingness to probe slow changes in more mundane objects of attrition. It will always be easier to ask for punishment than to institute a treatment program in a prison system where punishment comes first. The answer, to the extent that we can give one, lies in something separate, something either beyond or after punishment.

“The Divine Comedy is a limited guide, but it does reveal the pernicious parameters in the psychology of punishment and gives a response to them. [. . .] Criminal justice has gone astray, lost in a dark wood of its own making. It is time, more than time, to find a way out.” — Robert A. Ferguson, Inferno: An Anatomy of American Punishment, 249.

From David Cole’s review in the New York Times: “[Ferguson] insists that the only way out is to reconceptualize punishment. Invoking the circles of hell in Dante’s Divine Comedy, Ferguson argues that we need to reorient our prisons away from punishment and debasement and instead model them on Purgatorio, where individuals are restored to heaven through the care and love of others.” — David Cole, “Punitive Damage,” New York Times Sunday Book Review (May 16, 2014)

“The Price of Loyalty in Syria”

June 19, 2013 By Gretchen Williams '14

“. . .One night in Damascus, I met a 33-year-old computer programmer named Amir who had been part of the nonviolent protest movement from the beginning. . .
I asked if he was still active in the rebellion. ‘They put me in prison for two days,’ he said. ‘I was not tortured, no one even said a bad word to me. But for me it was — ‘ He stumbled for words, then turned toward me. ‘You know how Dante went to hell and was allowed to return? This cell was 10 meters square, with 152 people in it. It was two stories underground. There is no air, you feel constantly that you will choke. They had an undeclared system: for the first week, you stand, all day and all night. Then you get to lean against the wall for a few days. Then you get to sit. When you are standing, you are terrified to fall asleep, because you may never get up. Some people were there for only a few hours, some for days or weeks, and some had been tortured in ways I never imagined. For food, you get a bit of bread and some water, but that does not matter. You get about 30 seconds, once a day, in the bathroom, but trust me, you are not even worried about that. Because there are people in there who are literally asking for death.'” [. . .] –Robert F. Worth, The New York Times, June 19, 2013

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