La detenzione femminile. Riaprire il dibattito su un trattamento differente alla luce dei dati sulle carceri della Toscana.

Prison is an institution fashioned by male characteristics and needs, in which women are a minority, sharply separated by gender. The perspective of female difference allows us to grasp certain aspects of incarceration practices, such as the construction of female subjectivity—incompetent rather than guilty—and its identification with motherhood. The approach of female difference also helps us think critically about penitentiary treatment. Actually, from its historical origins, when it was conceived as a tool for the moral and criminal rehabilitation of women, to the central role it has gradually acquired in the prison system, treatment appears to be an ambiguous tool, continually swinging between correction and emancipation. Looking at the treatment that concretely connotes the detention of women in Tuscany today helps us understand how the limitations of an approach to treatment characterized by ambiguity are still present in penitentiary practice and how it is necessary to deconstruct the stereotypical female subjectivity that underlies it. From the perspective of difference-based feminism, we suggest reopening the debate on what kind of justice is appropriate for women. Furthermore, we call for a criminal justice model that assumes rights as its focus, including alternatives to detention, and overcomes the ambiguity nestled in treatment, considering it a tool for capacity building rather than a means of correction.