APCOM

During the August 15th public holiday around 100 inmates of three prisons near Milano (Bollate, Opera and Monza) will clean some of the city's green areas and parks. The initiative is part of a pilot project, the first in Italy, whose aim is to create a sort of employment agency for prisoners. The innovative job centre will be at the disposal of private organisations and companies looking for labour, also in view of the 2015 universal exhibition.

The organisation of the event will demand a huge amount of unskilled and low cost labour. Companies will be able to hire the inmates: they will leave the jail during the day, returning in the evening, while their employers will benefit from the tax breaks that are guaranteed by this kind of contracts.

The inmates involved in the cleaning up of Milano's parks, in particular Parco Nord, were sentenced for minor crimes and are serving short prison terms. They will be under surveillance of the penitentiary police and will collect a regular salary, which however will be much lower than that of an ordinary worker, the main object being their social rehabilitation. Previous initiatives, like their utilization as street and wall cleaners, proved to be successful.