Istituto della "messa alla prova" e ri-educazione. Questioni e temi pedagogico/educativi

  • Riccardo Pagano

Abstract

The 1988 reform of the Juvenile Criminal Trial has among its most important innovations the institution called "suspension of the trial", to test the accused minor putting him on probation. With this institution, the legislator didn't want to intervene introducing an indulgent element, but rather offering the possibility of a re-educational and social rehabilitation path to an accused child, with the value of probation, which is different from the English "probation system", because it doesn't follow condemnation, but it intervenes during the trial preceding the judicial decision. It is a chance offered to ensure a minor that he/she will not incur condemnation and punishment. During the “testing”, the identification of rehabilitation strategies becomes essential, and they should be reasonable, consensual, adequate, feasable, practical, positive, flexible and verifiable. The role of the pedagogue and of the educator in the institution of probation is a leading one. The pedagogy of "subject, context and situation" must think about its principles and theoretical categories. Education is subject to the close examination of the educator's action, who must go with the rehabilitation path during the “testing”, and who must be able to plan the re-educational intervention taking the whole responsibility in a dual perspective: a sustainable one and the possibility to modify existence. Education must sketch out a sort of experiential transcendence which allows the minor with a deviant behaviour to place himself/herself intentionally in the context/society again. This “testing”, today, has also been extended to adults, and it will involve some further critical reflections by pedagogy.