Prevention, not repression
Chapter 10 Ways suggested for helping boys with special problems
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- 1. Don Bosco with young detainees at the Generala
Chapter 10
For Don Bosco, all young people, by dint of being young, are virtually ‘at risk’; more so when one considers that they might unknowingly be subject to occult powers. But Don Bosco tends to distinguish them, to classify them. The first group or category is the largest one; the vast majority which also includes a minority of élite boys because of their moral qualities or because of their calling. He calls these ‘the many’, meaning “the ones of normal character and nature”. Then there is a “third group, the difficult disciples and the unruly”. In his Regulations for the houses, 1877, he calculates this group to be “one in fifteen” or 6-7%.777 At the lower end of this scale and immediately connected to it are boys with special difficulties. These are the ‘at risk’ (pericolati) types using the terminology of the day, which he never used: delinquents, boys involved with the police or a legal process, the ones entrusted to correctional institutes. This fourth category was never included in a steady and systematic way in the educational and institutional framework that Don Bosco visualised for the majority category. But Don Bosco never ignored their existence and never excluded them from his interests as priest and educator. Neither did he exclude them from the reach of his Preventive System. Don Bosco’s involvement can be certainly recognised within four fundamental situations: 1. A direct experience, however marginal, with youngsters in prison and correctional institutions (1841-1855). 2. His encounter with’ mischievous’ boys within or close to his own institutions. 3. The problematic hypothesis of a reformatory school. 4. The proposal to have his Preventive System universally applied, even though in a differentiated integrated fashion.
Father John Francis Giacomelli, Don Bosco’s friend and confessor, gave the following testimony at the Diocesan process for Don Bosco’s Beatification and Canonization, on May 2, 1892: Don Bosco’s charity was not restricted to the boys of his Oratory, but also had a broader reach. As a matter of fact, I accompanied him to the prisons where he taught catechism and heard confessions. I also accompanied him to the ‘Hotel for Virtue’ where more than 100 boys were boarding.778 Don Bosco began this work at the urging of Fr Cafasso, while he was at the at the Convitto Ecclesiastico (1841-1844) and he continued it later on, either on his own initiative or in connection with the Oratory work, as pointed out by various converging and interdependent sources.779 Besides all this, what has been said about Don Bosco’s ties with the prisons for minors and the Generala workhouse can be substantiated with additional information.780 John Bonetti in the History of the Oratory of St Francis de Sales wrote that “ever since the government had opened the penitentiary and handed its administration over to the Society of St Peter in Chains, Don Bosco received permission to visit those poor youngsters, worthy of every compassion, every once in a while. With permission from the prisons director, Don Bosco gave the boys catechism instructions, preached to them, heard their confessions, and many times mingled with them in recreation in a friendly manner, just as he used to do with his children at the Oratory”.781 This is the context for the legendary outing to Stupinigi, which Don Bosco had with detainees during the spring of 1855 organised by Don Bosco alone, with the consent of Urban Rattazzi, then minister of the interior. This event had no guards at all and relied only on mutual trust, the conscientious commitment of the detainees and the spellbinding influence of the educator.782 An event such as this, rather more limited, was likely to have happened according to the regulations of the correctional institution. In fact, the institution foresaw the possibility that outings as a reward be granted to youngsters who made the ‘honour roll’. From a letter by Canon Fissiaux to the minister of the interior and dated April 22, 1846, we come to know that a small group of worthy detainees around Easter time had been accompanied on an outing to Stupinigi. “The youngsters”, writes the Canon “enjoyed themselves a lot and after dinner in a wooded area, all went back home without not even a hint of setback”.783 But besides these sporadic forms of assistance, continued regularly or by exception, we have personal testimony from Don Bosco himself in the Memoirs of the Oratory of St Francis de Sales, and even before that, recorded as a preface to the already quoted Historical sketches on the Oratory of St Francis de Sales. These statements establish an immediate relationship between Don Bosco’s activity among the young detainees and the beginnings and development of the work on behalf of the oratories. However, there is still a lingering legitimate suspicion that dates and recollections may have actually overlapped, with the usual addition of some padding.784 At any rate, we have to recognise the fact that for a certain period of time the Oratory remained sensitive to the problem of anybody, especially the young, released from prison or from a correctional institution.
It was then that I had first-hand experience that youngsters released from jail were able to live an upright life, forget the past and become good Christians and upright citizens, if they found a kindly hand to take care of them, be with them at weekends and try to find employment for them with some employer or visit them sometime during the week.785 On Feb. 20, 1850, Don Bosco wrote a letter to the administrators of the Mendacità Istruita alms-house. While referring to the youngsters who attended the Oratory around 1846, Don Bosco wrote, with evident exaggeration, “that there were between 600 to700 youngsters between the ages of 12 and 20, and most of them had been released from prison or were in danger of going to prison”.786 In 1854, however, and we know this from a manuscript unpublished for a long time, Don Bosco gave a talk which was more normally preventive in nature. It was more urgent and productive to educate “abandoned” young migrants to the city than to re-educate young men released from prison. During this time, when I was visiting prison detainees, I noticed that the unfortunates who ended up in that place of punishment were mostly poor youngsters who come from far away towns into the city either because they needed to find employment or because they were lured there by some mischievous individual. And these youngsters, especially on weekends, left to themselves, spent the few cents earned during the week on games or gluttonous pursuits. This is where vices come from and the youngsters who were once good soon became enough ‘at risk’ and ‘a risk’ for others. Prisons do not offer these youngsters any way to improve. As a matter of fact in jail they learn new ways to cause harm. Therefore, by the time they are released, these youngsters have become worse. This is why I directed my attention to this class of youngster since they were “abandoned” and “at risk” more than others and during the week, either through promises or actual small gifts I tried my best to win them over and to make them my pupils.787 We also have documented proof that Don Bosco was an effective member of the Royal Society for the protection of youngsters released from the Generala prison.788This society had been championed very strongly by Petitti di Roreto and by his friend Juvenal Vegezzi-Ruscalla. Petitti had already written about a ‘Patronage for released detainees’, in an essay ‘On Proper Administration of the Alms-house (Mendicità).789 Petitti had once again taken up the topic with increased conviction in a more specific work On the current condition of the prisons. It would have turned out to be useless, as a matter of fact, to debate the corrective education of prison-detainees if no thought had been given to some private, voluntary institution aimed at facilitating their re-entry into society. As an example, Petitti quoted France, where, for some years institutions for prisoners had been created to provide “an education for young detainees”, as well as “Societies aimed at sponsoring detainees released from prison”.790 In Italy the situation regarding prisons lagged well behind. Petitti had suggested several solutions: societies to sponsor people detained in prison, and released from prison; religious and charitable institutions destined to help the sponsoring societies; shelters for those released from prisons etc.791 The Royal Society for sponsoring young men released from prison had been authorized by Charles Albert with a royal Brief dated November 21, 1846, and had its statutes approved. Its members were divided into three categories: ‘Active members’, who assumed the task of being Tutors; ‘Paying Members’, and ‘Paying and active members’. Don Bosco is listed among the first 57 subscribers, among whom were outstanding personalities such as Caesar Alfieri, Caesar Balbo, Robert D’Azeglio, Gustav Camillo di Cavour, Charles Boncompagni. It took quite some time to collect the necessary funds and a reassuring number of participants. Writing to Vincent Gioberti on August 10, 1847, Petitti mentions 1200 members and a fund of 30,000 lire. This society became operative in 1849.792 We have a letter dated August 8, 1855, which proves Don Bosco’s effective involvement in this society. With this letter the society’s vice president entrusted to a young man Don Bosco who had been released from prison, asking him to find employment for him, assist him and help him, and keep a check on him for the three years of his apprenticeship. This kind of help was laid down in the Instructions for Sponsors of freed youth detainees. Don Bosco took on the young man entrusted to him and the obligations indicated, as evidenced by a letter dated August 14, 1855 from his close helper, Father Victor Alasonatti. The Biographer adds that Don Bosco accepted other young men released from prison but with less than satisfactory results, which led him to once again tell the administrators of the Society that his preference was for boys who needed to be sheltered in his home, thus forestalling any “correctional measure”.793
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