Word: penality
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...dangerous in Italy to publish a photograph of a woman with a bare bosom. Such pictures-for instance, in Vogue's Italian edition-no longer provoke surprise. Despite the seizure orders (usually from a local prosecutor), Playmen has only rarely been charged under Article 725 of the Italian penal code for "violation of the common sense of decency...
Criminologist James Robison, who does research for the California legislature, is among those who question the accuracy of many penal statistics. He even disputes the much-vaunted results of the California Youth Authority's Community Treatment Project, a famous experiment in which convicted juvenile delinquents were not confined' but given intensive tutoring and psychotherapy. After five years, only 28% had their paroles revoked, compared with 52% of another group that was locked up after conviction. As a result, the state expanded the project and cut back on new reformatories, saving millions. Robison, though, has proved, at least to his satisfaction...
Given the facts of penal bureaucracy and sheer ignorance, critics like Robison sometimes wonder whether the only rational solution is simply to unlock all jails and prisons, which clearly breed crime and hold only 5% of the nation's criminal population while costing far more to run than all the crimes committed by their inmates. Pessimism is well founded, but the encouraging sign is that few if any Americans defend the system as it is. From the President to the lowliest felon, the nation wants a humane system that truly curbs crime. This is the year of the prisons...
Everyone knows what prisons are supposed to do: cure criminals. Way back in 1870, the nation's leading prison officials met in Cincinnati and carved 22 principles that became the bible of their craft. "Reformation," they declared, "not vindictive suffering, should be the purpose of the penal treatment of prisoners." Today, every warden in the U.S. endorses the ideal of rehabilitation. Every penologist extols "individualized treatment" to cure each inmate's hangups and return society's misfits to crime-free lives. But the rhetoric is so far from reality that perhaps 40% of all released inmates (75% in some areas...
While Italy's penal code does not yet recognize skyjacking as a crime, Milnichiello faced a possible 32-year prison term on charges of assault, kidnaping and bringing into the country a "weapon of war"the Ml carbine with which he commandeered the plane. Convicted on all counts, Minichiello was sentenced to only 7½ years in prisona year and a month more than the sympathetic prosecution had requested. He has already served one year of the sentence in Rome's bleak Queen of Heaven jail while awaiting trial. The penalty will be reduced...