PIANOSA ISLAND, Italy - Holiday makers arriving on the white sands of
Pianosa island off western Italy are welcomed by hosts unlike any others, five
prisoners still serving time who help manage a local hotel.
At first sight, there is little to set apart the island, one of seven in the
Tuscan Archipelago, with its quaint port, schools of fish and waters as
turquoise as those in the Indian Ocean around the Maldives.
The concrete wall of a high security prison attests to its past as a penal
colony, where mafia bosses considered particularly dangerous were once sent
before the prison closed in 1998.
But a handful of convicted criminals are back on Pianosa, earning their keep
and rustling up food for tourists thanks to a programme started in 2000 by a
local cooperative called San Giacomo in conjunction with the prison on nearby
Elba island.
"It's a really positive initiative. It allows these people to gradually
re-integrate into society with a lot less trauma then if they were to leave
prison from one day to the next," the cooperative's deputy head Brunello De
Batte told AFP.
The inmates, each serving a long sentence for undisclosed crimes, have been
given contracts to work as barmen, cooks, cleaners, waiters, even gift shop
salesmen in the small, 12-room hotel with a bar and restaurant run by the
cooperative.
Still considered prisoners, they cannot leave the island and are confined at
night to special rooms.
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In a picture taken on August 7, 2012, tourists arrive on the Italian island of
Pianosa. Originally a penal colony since 1858 and the location for a high
security prison in the 1970s, the island of Pianosa was eventually transformed
into a tourist destination after the closing of the prison, and a unique
program was set-up allowing for exemplary inmates to be trained and employed
there before the end of their jail term.
A view of the port on the Italian island of Pianosa on August 7, 2012.
Tourists walk on the side of the port on the Italian island of Pianosa.
A view of the port on the Italian island of Pianosa on August 7, 2012.
Originally a penal colony since 1858 and the location for a high security
prison in the 1970s, the island of Pianosa was eventually transformed into a
tourist destination after the closing of the prison, and a unique program was
set-up allowing for exemplary inmates to be trained and employed there before
the end of their jail term. The prisoners who take care of the new tourist
facilities, from room service at the hotel to cooking, are employed by the San
Giacomo cooperative, and must show exemplary conduct in prison and have gone
through two-thirds of their jail term.
In a picture taken on August 7, 2012, tourists sit in the entrance of a hotel
managed by the San Giacomo cooperative, on the Italian island of Pianosa.
An inmate works in the kitchen at a hotel managed by the San Giacomo
cooperative, on the Italian island of Pianosa.
Tourists visit the building formerly housing a maximum security prison on the
Italian island of Pianosa.
A woman poses next to a street sign bearing the names of prominent judges who
were killed by the mafia, on the Italian island of Pianosa on August 7, 2012.
Tourists sunbathe at San Giovanni beach near the building formerly housing a
maximum security prison in the backdrop, on the Italian island of Pianosa on
August 7, 2012.
