Rethinking prison intervention from action community action and citizen education

Abstract

The process of change from late modernity to postmodernity is associated with a necessary change in the model of criminal intervention. Punishment cannot be the central axis of the intervention as it does not provide substantial improvements to the person and does not facilitate the insertion processes. The reinserting purpose of the sentence requires the necessary educational intervention within the prisons, allowing, on the one hand, the deterrence and withdrawal of the commission of new criminal acts, but also the incorporation into the community effectively through the methodologies of Community Social Pedagogy.

The Spanish and Catalan penal system has implemented this type of intervention through successful models where the participation of and in the community and education in social values and citizens are the backbone of the proposal. The theoretically based article presents the pillars of the proposed penal model, based on the study of the three current penitentiary models, which have been analysed under four dimensions of intervention: reception, intervention in criminal etiology, reinforcement of social ties and, citizen education through social participation.