Ten years of PUP, the University Penitentiary Center of the University of Sassari

The tenth anniversary of the Penitentiary University Center (PUP) will be celebrated on Tuesday 26 March in the great hall of the University of Sassari. It is the opportunity to sign the third memorandum of understanding, valid for the three-year period 2024-2027, in the presence of the leaders of all the bodies involved: University of Sassari, Supervision for penitentiary administration (PRAP Sardinia), Inter-district Enforcement Office External Criminal Justice (UIEPE Sardinia), Juvenile Justice Center of Cagliari (CGM) and, for the first time, the ERSU of Sassari.

The first signature of a bilateral memorandum of understanding between the University of Sassari and the Regional Department of Penitentiary Administration (PRAP) dates back to 26 March 2014; this was followed, 6 years later, by the signing of a new protocol, much more extensive and detailed, quadrilateral, also extended to the Inter-district Office of External Criminal Enforcement (UIEPE) and the Juvenile Justice Center (CGM) of Cagliari. The University of Sassari boasts a long history of collaboration with the Ministry of Justice, which dates back to the 1990s and 2000s, with the signing of agreements with the Department of Penitentiary Administration (DAP) and the Department of Juvenile Justice (DGM , now the Department of Juvenile and Community Justice - DGMC). But the formal establishment of a Penitentiary University Center was only started in 2014. It started with 20-30 students, mainly concentrated in the Penitentiary Institutes of Alghero and Tempio Pausania, reaching around 70 today, detained not only in the 4 Institutes Affiliated penitentiaries (in addition to Alghero and Tempio Pausania, also Sassari and Nuoro), but also in other regional and Italian institutes. The external criminal enforcement component is increasingly consolidated, representing on average 10% of the student population.

In the penitentiary institutions in which it operates, the University of Sassari engages on average three times as many prisoners as the national average (5-6% compared to 2%), with peaks of excellence in the two prisons of Tempio Pausania ( 15-17%) and Alghero (8-10%). The active student population belonging to the PUP has consistently stood at around 60-70 units in the last five years, which has seen around 20 graduates. Students under detention are mainly enrolled in the degree courses of the Departments of Agriculture, History, Human Sciences and Education (DISSUF), Humanities and Social Sciences (DUMAS), Law and Economic and Business Sciences (DISEA): in the last Over the years, the demand for courses at the Department of Architecture, Design and Urban Planning (DADU) has also increased.

The organizational model of the PUP Uniss, with a large deployment of teachers and administrative staff, allows for the provision of specific services ranging from access to study materials to support for administrative procedures, from facilitating contact with teachers to the implementation of cultural and training courses, carried out with training bodies, associations and the third sector in general, also open to prisoners not enrolled at the University.

In this context there are two cutting-edge projects launched in 2022 and implemented in 2023-24: one of a cultural nature called LiberArte, the other more applicative on Social Agriculture. Both are being held in the two prisons in Alghero and Tempio Pausania and involve a total of more than 100 participants: they aim not only to improve individual knowledge in the cultural and agronomic fields, but also to encourage inclusion and cooperation and to strengthen the transversal skills of the participants in areas that can be used for post-prison reintegration, also in terms of employment.

On March 26, an important window on the future opens with the signing of the third memorandum of understanding valid for the three-year period 2024-27, in the presence of the leaders of all the signatory bodies. The novelty of this third version is first of all the expansion of the partnership to 5 institutions, with the adhesion of the Regional Body for the Right to University Study of Sassari (ERSU) which in 10 years has always provided financial support (especially for the purchase of textbooks and finally support for the start-up of a theater laboratory within the LiberArte project). A second novelty of the new protocol consists of the aggregation of previous specific agreements, as attachments, in a single corpus, a sort of "service charter" which includes the provision of library services, IT services, the regulation of curricular internships in a penitentiary and community context (36 new places for internships planned in the 4 penitentiary institutions and at the offices relating to UEPE and CGM) and the protection of privacy.

“The hope on the part of the University of Sassari and the partner organizations is that the role and social impact of the PUP is also recognized by local, regional and national administrations, above all in order to guarantee the adequate provision of resources that a this amount of activity, not only academic, requires", commented the Rector Gavino Mariotti. The Rectoral Delegate for the Penitentiary University Centre, now as then, is Professor Emmanuele Farris: "The PUP is an intangible infrastructure of the territory, rooted in the local realities where it works to offer diversified and quality services. This is why the network of partners is fundamental, and we thank them."