Abstract

The article focuses on the different meanings that sociability assumes inside correctional facilities. As a specific context – pretending to regulate all the aspects of the inmates’ everyday life – the prison is characterized by peculiar forms of socialization. From the point of view of the convicted, it is crucial to identify and practise strategies of adaptation which imply the acquisition of situated social skills. The prison staff, on the other hand, must consider sociability as a field to observe with the double aim of organizing treatment and managing conflicts