Abstract

The article explores possible paths of institutionalising and disciplining of the "incarcerated body" in the face of a potential risk of weakening the constitutional mandate according to which the purpose of a custodial sentence is also to promote re-education and reintegration. At the same time, attention is paid to the processes of de-socialisation from the pre-prison life experiences and of re-socialisation to the new prison culture. The aim is to highlight the possible "spaces of action" and "margins of manoeuvre" in the process of adaptation to the new condition between heterodirected practices and processes of subjectivation ascribable to processes of redefinition and re-signification of the prison experience. To meet these research objectives, the analytical path was developed through a qualitative research conducted between 2018 and 2021 by collecting the biographical narratives of people who left the prison circuit at the end of their sentence.