• Education and social action to implement forms of bottom-up counter actions against organized crime

Providing help to those who are ill is not enough if at the same time action is not taken to understand and thus eradicate the causes of their illness. This principle applies in particular to those exposed to the reach of criminal networks.

Acting for the affirmation of social justice means implementing forms of bottom-up counter actions against organized crime for the purpose of crime prevention.

Mafias - in their various national and international manifestations - do not only use force of arms, but also exercise cultural violence that helps them in their control of territories.

Omertà, complacency, familism, bullying, indifference are all attitudes that are part of the mafia mentality. This is why mafias greatly fear education and any kind of quality treatment intervention, because they are able to expose their true face and propose the alternative values of democracy: transparency, honesty, accountability, equality.

Women and young people from families linked to organized crime who - regardless of prison experiences - choose to distance themselves from their families and their pasts are a type of audience on which successful interventions can be enhanced.

We refer to projects of high educational value on issues of legality, which can also find expression in “probation” programmes. They involve young people in visits to confiscated property and in listening to the testimony of family members of innocent victims of organized crime. We also refer to women who are being counseled and protected so that they can bring to maturity a choice that is not easy, often actively hindered by families who continue to seek and threaten them.

There are numerous countries in which associations operate that have developed know-how of excellence with respect to actions to be carried out for the prevention and treatment of addiction to substances or behaviors (drugs, gambling, web); in supporting victims of trafficking and labour or sexual exploitation; in promoting youth leadership and preventing school dropout in at-risk neighborhoods; in inclusion pathways for people and families of foreign origin; in situations of intra-family conflict and violence; in low-threshold, with help for homeless people especially substance dependent.

Lastly, in recent decades some states, non-governmental organisations, and research reinforced their attention towards the possibility to implement pathways for personal and professional growth for those who have been unable to escape criminal networks.

The challenge is enormous since in many countries in the world, prisons are the places where the possibilities of implementing preventive pathways with respect to the risk of recidivism encounter enormous resistance from both prison organisations and criminal networks. Prison organisation itself operates through rules and practices that - even in juvenile prisons - favour rather than hinder the inclusive action of criminal networks.

The meeting in Florence has the following objectives:

a. Identify topics and challenges on which further prospecting and experimentation activities on an international scale can be developed;

b. Publish a call from a magazine and its special issue dedicated to the topic which constitutes added value compared to what already exists;

c. Check the possibility of building a transnational path for the training of professionals and volunteers in education and social action to promote forms of bottom-up counter actions against organized crime in the contexts where it works.