Made In Prison: A New Model Of Sustainable Social Enterprise
Made in Prison is a project initiated by Luciana Delle Donne, a leading manager in the financial industry who left her job determined to dedicate her skills to a different end. Her dream was to work in the field of sustainability and support disadvantaged people.
One day a friend of mine told me about this volcanic woman entrepreneur who had staked everything on creating a new model of sustainable social enterprise. She set up a bag factory in prison to give a second chance to detainees and new life in scrap fabrics. We are not talking about the modern-day slavery taking place in the U.S., where prison laborers are paid as little as 10 cents per hour. This is an enterprise that teaches inmates job-skills and helps them sustain themselves and their families.
I was really intrigued. I got in touch with some of the editors-in-chief of magazines that usually publish my work, but their response was lukewarm. So I decided to contact her directly. I explained to her that no magazine had commissioned me to cover her project, but I was confident that I could publish it. I proposed that I come to visit her. She accepted, but warned me that shooting photos in a prison would not be easy. I needed to request authorization and there was no guarantee that I would get it.
After five months, I was finally granted access to the women’s wings of the Lecce High Security prison to shoot my reportage on the “Made In Carcere” (Made In Prison) project. I didn’t know much about the prison. Actually I didn’t know much about prisons in general, but during the shooting I learned many things.
When I got there, I only had access to the workshops. The cells — as one prisoner told me — are “three paces by two” with one single bed and one bunk bed in them. If one of the three prisoners wants to stretch her legs by walking those three paces, the other two need to lie on the beds because there is only a very narrow passage between the two beds. Prisoners are confined to their cells except for two hours a day when they can go out into a small court with very high walls. Many prisoners try to kill themselves, others ask for “the therapy”: strong psychotropic drugs.
The prison is not a very happy place, during my shooting I heard women screaming and crying. But when I photographed them, I preferred to capture their smiling side.
Then I asked them, “Do you think I am wrong? Do you think I should portray your desperation?” They seemed to be happy to be photographed while smiling.
One of them told me, “Actually it would be more accurate if you could also photographed our cells. Most women do not have the same chance we have. If you could show that in your pictures, people would see our smile, but would also have a better idea of our reality.” Unfortunately, it seemed to be impossible to get a permit to photograph the cells…
I shot groups of women working together, several portraits, a few details of the detainees working at the sewing machines and a group shot. I also photographed a general view of the workshop and a few close-ups of the fabrics. I didn’t start shooting immediately, first I took some time to introduce myself and talk with the women, they were very intrigued about having a visitor from the outside world.
I made it very clear that if they didn’t want to be photographed or if they were annoyed by my camera, they had to let me know. From time to time, I also showed them the pictures I was shooting and when I saw on their face that they didn’t like themselves in the picture, I immediately deleted it. My attitude helped them to trust me and relax a bit.
I also interviewed many of the prisoners: we would sit in a corner and I would ask them all my questions. The interviews were extremely moving, I realized how much they needed to talk.
For them, opening up to other detainees can be dangerous, and their only other option is to open up to police officers. So we talked quite a lot.
During my visit I was asked to respect a number of rules: never ask about the crimes committed by the prisoners, never photograph the windows, doors, locks or police officers.
Guess what? When I showed the pictures to my agent in Paris he told me: “Very nice, but… how do we know that we are in a prison?”
I must admit it, I had followed the rules a little bit too strictly in my shooting. So I decided to go back to the Lecce prison. Luckily, I could get in using the permit that I already had and once I was in I explained my point of view to the guards. They were very cooperative, making it clear what they didn’t like me photographing, but allowing me to show a bit more of the prison. They also asked me to show them what I shot to be sure that I had followed their instructions. At the end of my second day of shooting, the reportage was more complete.
I selected a set of images, I wrote an article and the interviews to accompany the portraits. I sent everything to my agents and to the magazines I usually work with. The feature was seen by the editorial staff of all the magazines in Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Belgium. Despite my optimism, only one magazine in France decided to publish a small article. I had to wait about one year before an Italian magazine published a 6-page article with my pictures. My text and interviews were ignored and replaced with a “glamourized” version of the story (Luciana, how do you combine such an intense professional life with your romantic/intimate life?). That’s why I have decided to publish my article and all the interviews here. This experience taught me a lot and I feel the urge to share it with as many people as possible.
I shot this feature a while ago. In the meantime two of the interviewed detainees have been released and Made In Carcere has expanded to include the creation of vertical kitchen gardens in prison.
Made In Prison
Why would a top bank executive with a brilliant career decide one day to drop everything to embark on an uncertain future? “I wanted to get out of the world of finance, I was beginning to feel cramped,” explains Luciana Delle Donne, who will turn 54 this year. “I knew I wanted to dedicate myself to sustainability and social inclusion, I mean, something that helps people and our planet. But I still didn’t know exactly how I was going to do it.”
Following her instinct, in 2004 Luciana quit her job and went to Brazil to work as a volunteer in a group home in Recife. There were 250 children to take care of and the experience taught her that she was indeed able to help.
She returned to Italy, her ideas still not clear in her head. She got involved in renewable energy and sustainability. Then she discovered that a tailor shop had been opened in a Milan prison.
“I was immediately excited by the idea. I asked the bank where I had worked for 22 years if they would sponsor the project with a small sum and then went to visit the warden at the prison in my city, Lecce. To be honest, I didn’t get the warmest of receptions, there was a lot of distrust. But since I wasn’t asking for money, I was given the possibility to organize a training program in the prison. With the 2,500 euros donated by the Monte Dei Paschi di Siena bank plus 2,000 euros contributed by the Province of Lecce and 100,000 euros out of my pockets, I bought two sewing machines and made the minimum indispensable expenditures for organizing a six-month course, including covering teacher expenses.”
“At the Lecce prison, the inmates spend twenty-two hours a day in their cells. The other two hours are spent in a small courtyard surrounded by high walls. Those who are granted prison leave feel dizzy outside because they are not used to seeing such a distant horizon. And since they don’t do a lot of walking in prison, their legs stiffen up right away from lactic acid buildup.”
“Accustomed to these conditions of imprisonment, they responded enthusiastically to the opportunity to work in the sewing shop. The women inmates that I brought into the project put everything they had into learning. We knew that within a few months we were going to be ready to accept jobs and transform the school into a small business that would be able to pay wages.”
But one day, close to the end of the training period, Luciana arrived at the prison to find the workshop empty: all of the detainees who had been working on the project, except one (Jaqueline), had been released under a governmental pardon [granted by the Italian parliament in 2006].
“I was certainly happy for them, but now all the preparatory work I had done was going to waste. I felt discouraged and didn’t know whether to press on or give up. But I took a deep breath and decided to begin anew with new prisoners … but without money, sponsors, or teachers.”
Her perseverance was rewarded and the emergency put her on the right track to finding a winning idea. “I contacted a friend who owned a textile company, asking him to give me his leftover scraps of fabric. Then another fabric maker joined, followed by yet another. I began to receive support from many business owners who were happy to free up their storehouses and also contribute to a social project. However, I could no longer afford to do training exclusively; we had to produce something that would quickly bring in money. But what?”
Inspiration came when Luciana took part in a convention and saw all the expensive paper bags prepared for the occasion that ended up being discarded by the participants. It seemed to be an intolerable waste, and this gave her the idea of producing document bags to sell to convention and conference organizers. The bags would be used originally to carry papers and documents, and then reused for shopping, school, the gym…
“Finally, my desire to contribute to the health of the planet and to the wellbeing of disadvantaged persons was beginning to take concrete form. Using recycled materials and employing detainees, I could create a model of development that benefited everyone: companies would have a way to get rid of their scrap, the detainees would learn a trade, and the customers would reduce their ecological footprint.”
“I threw myself headlong back into the work. The first order arrived from the Puglia Department of Agriculture. They were followed by universities, trade fairs, supermarkets, and even a festival. Above all, it was also a victory for Italian style because the product we had developed was truly a quality article: brightly colored ‘70s-style fabrics, or else scrap from articles that would have hit the racks in the upcoming season. Since then, in spite of thousands of unexpected snags and difficulties, we’ve done nothing but improve. We have added a second workshop for prisoners in the maximum security ward, another in the Trani prison, and yet another outside the prison for former inmates or those who are under house arrest.”
With steadfast determination, Luciana succeeded in creating a business in a very short time based on recovering scrap materials and employing people in disadvantaged conditions. It is a sustainable development model that is very different from those promoted in the financial world where she came from. “But there is still a lot to do,” she promptly stresses. “There are a lot of detainees and right now my work is limited to twenty. It’s a pity. My objective is to consolidate a model of social enterprise that can be replicated on the national scale to generate benefits for a broader group of people. People like our bags. Now we are getting orders for 50,000 pieces at a time, and not just from Italy, but also from Canada, the United States, Germany and England. However, before we grow we need to stabilize. And then there is the fact that all this work has to be coordinated. Right now we have a great need for experts to join our staff, competent people with good organizational skills and a good knowledge of production and logistics systems. People with entrepreneurial DNA but also with a big heart that refuses to give up. The idea is growing fast, but it’s still in its infancy…”
Maria, Italian, 63 years old, sentenced to five years and six months in the maximum security ward, reserved principally for mafia offenders.
“When you enter the prison it seems like everything is finished. Instead, it’s the beginning of everything. Here you can learn to get rid of and also to understand your mistakes. But not everyone manages to seize the opportunity. There are people who enter and leave prison and during their confinement all they learn is how to commit more crimes. I had the luck of going to work in the sewing shop right when I got here, it was a huge help. I felt horrible because I was always thinking about the years I would spend far from my children, my grandchildren, and my freedom. I started taking Tavor [Lorazepam] to help me deal with being locked up, but slowly, slowly, thanks to working, I regained control. I discovered the joy of making beautiful things using the tools that were available and my creativity. You feel freer in the workshop because your mind is on something constructive. And I also had a lot of time to reflect on my life and the choices I had made. I stopped taking Tavor; the psychiatrist told me it was working that did it. Now I feel like I have blossomed again, even my grandkids tell me that I am nicer. It’s true: here I have learned how to socialize and support others. Maybe I really needed to come to prison to understand what life is all about and the importance of being altruistic. Receiving comfort is certainly nice, but knowing how to give it is beautiful: everyone lives better. I’ll be getting out soon and I’m afraid that it’s not going to be easy out there. I’ll find people who will never understand what prison is, who will look at me with suspicion, who won’t want to talk to me. Never mind. Prison took something from me and gave me something else. There are experiences you can only understand by having had them.”
Elena, Romanian gypsy, 38 years old, sentenced to thirteen years.
“When I came to prison, six years ago, I thought that my life was over. I always supported my family and they didn’t have money to send me. Fortunately, to earn something they had me wash the corridors in the prison. But only for two months. Then, finally, I was accepted into the sewing shop. [It was a] huge turning point! Before getting arrested I stole perfume and clothes and sold them for half price at Porta Portese (flea market in Rome). I had never learned to do a normal job. I said to myself, ‘This is a golden opportunity. I will work. I don’t know how to do anything but I will give it my all to learn a trade.’ Actually, I had wanted to work even before I was arrested, but there aren’t a lot of possibilities for an illiterate gypsy. Now I’ve been working for two years with Made In Carcere. With the money I earn, my husband and son can afford to live in an apartment and not in a shack anymore. My husband is working now too, and my son goes to school, he won’t be illiterate like me. My daughter has three children and I help them a little bit too. When I get out I know I won’t need to steal anymore. I want to teach my mother and my fourteen brothers and sisters how to sew and we can open a tailor shop in Romania. I’ll take my husband by the hand and teach him too. In the workshop I learned to be very precise and fulfill all the commitments I make, a discipline I didn’t have before. But even if I love working and it distracts me, being locked up far from my children is unbearable. Lots of detainees take ‘the therapy’, but I refused it. Those medicines control you, you don’t know anything anymore and you don’t care about anything anymore. I want to stay lucid. I’d rather weep and feel the pain all the way to the depths of my soul because if I feel it I can digest it and slowly, slowly it will go away.”
Antonietta, Italian, 29 years old, sentenced to six years, already served three years and six months.
“I was a junkie for ten years, prison has been my fortune. Otherwise I might have ended badly. My other piece of great fortune was being able to work in the sewing shop. It’s not easy to get in. They accepted me more than three years after my first application. There are a lot of detainees and only a few positions, and so it is a much coveted privilege. It’s understandable: when you sit at the sewing machine it’s a bit like escaping because you almost don’t know you’re in prison anymore. I am serving my sentence doing a normal job and in the evening I feel tired and satisfied with what I have done. And it’s not just a question of having sewn some bags. I’ve been in prison a long time and I am able to understand the problems I see in the new inmates. A momentary weakness, an impulsive flash… I’ve been there and I know what they need to hear. Sometimes I amaze myself at how patient and ready to help I am now. The workshop has helped me a lot to grow up. Here each one of us has to be responsible for what she does and also for what her companions do. If one of us works badly, it jeopardizes the result for the whole group. And so the others teach her the things she doesn’t know how to do or else they try to give her moral support. And the team spirit gets stronger. It’s not the same outside of the workshop. Staying locked up in your cell 22 hours a day makes you mean. If all the prisoners had the opportunity that we have, prison would truly be a place of rehabilitation. We made mistakes; we can change and better ourselves. Everyone makes mistakes in life, the important thing is that they at least help us learn. I was the black sheep of the family; now I am trying to repair the relationship with my father and make things up to everyone I have made suffer.”
“But I am a good girl!”, she promptly answered, “I made a mistake and I am paying for it”.
Touché.
Grazia, Italian, 35 years old, sentenced to nineteen years in the maximum security ward, reserved principally for mafia offenders.
“In prison, if you don’t have money, you don’t even get water. So much crud comes out of the faucet that you’re afraid to drink. I never wanted to ask for money from my family; I was the one to make the mistake and it wouldn’t be right. But it wasn’t easy. If you want to work you have to apply for a job and there’s no guarantee you’ll be accepted. Fortunately, I was able to help out in the kitchen for three years. Then they didn’t need me anymore and I applied to the sewing shop. Actually, at the beginning I was pretty doubtful, I didn’t know how to sew, in fact I was totally incompetent! Instead, after a month it seemed like this work was made just for me. Luciana is able to transmit her enthusiasm to us and give us new hope. Even if we are depressed, unwilling, and don’t know how to work. I’ve been in prison for six and a half years now and have thirteen more to go. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. You should think twice before breaking the law, but I didn’t think about it at all. I was a farmworker, then a salesgirl… then I got married and discovered what I thought was the good life. Now my husband is locked up in a maximum security prison — a prison so tough that it makes our situation here look like a cakewalk. I won’t be out of here for a long, long time. Detention has given me the opportunity to do some profound soul searching and when I get out I don’t want to go on making mistakes. Will I find work? The label of convict will stick forever. With Made In Carcere there’s the chance to keep on working after you’re released, a fundamental help for reintegrating into civil society. Because it’ll be hard. At any rate, even if others forget about my incarceration, I can’t: nineteen years is a long time.”
Loredana, Romanian gypsy, 33 years old, sentenced to five years and six months.
“I have four children living in Romania. Ever since my arrest they have been begging on the streets to support me in prison. It’s not easy to work in prison. A month ago, finally, they accepted me in the sewing shop and now I will be able to send money to my children. When they told me that my application had been accepted I started trembling all over, I thought it was a miracle. I didn’t know how to sew, I didn’t have any experience and I wanted with all my heart to be able to earn something that I could send to my children and to my husband, who’s handicapped. My first task was to keep the workshop clean. Then, bit by bit, I learned how to cut [fabric], package, and do other simple tasks. Now, every day I can hardly wait to go to work and learn a little bit more. It was an extraordinary opportunity for me. And even though prison is a terrible ordeal, this is an immense joy. I am getting trained for a trade that will be useful to me outside of prison too and I am learning how to work in a team, share responsibilities, meet deadlines. All things that were new to me. In the workshop we don’t just learn to sew, we also develop a lot of other skills. For example, we discuss things to find solutions to small production problems. And when one of us needs a bit of comforting, we know how to provide it. It’s a very intense human experience that helps us all grow together, day by day. Personally, I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t had this opportunity. When I was first in prison I cried all the time and had asked for “the therapy”; then I realized that it was going to destroy me and so I quit. My work gives me incredible strength and enthusiasm. I’ve changed a lot and when my sentence is up I would like to keep working with Luciana.”
Lucia, Italian, 35 years old, has served four years of a (non-final) sentence of thirty years.
“Working gives me a certain continuity with the rhythm I had before, when I was free. I wake up in the morning with an objective. Instead other inmates get up without having anything to do, or maybe they don’t get up at all and stay in bed all day. Our work is precious; those who don’t have this privilege would like to have it and often they envy us. In addition to the advantage of being in the workshop and not in our cells, at the end of the month we get our wages and are not a burden on our families who otherwise would have to support us. It’s not always easy, you have to learn how to get in sync with the other girls so we do a good job of finishing the things we have committed to providing. And in here the problems are many, there’s not just work. And yet we move forward, people like the bags we sew and buy them. It’s a great satisfaction to think that someone outside is using something that I made as a detainee, a useful thing that is appreciated. Perhaps those who have never experienced life in prison cannot understand what a joy it is for us. It’s like being a little bit outside too. Working gives us the possibility to redeem ourselves, it’s a real rehabilitation. Instead, closed in their cells, people harden even more and when they get out they can’t reintegrate. No, they’re actually much worse than they were when they came in. It doesn’t seem like it’s such a great advantage for society. If a person makes a mistake, I believe they shouldn’t be annihilated but rehabilitated instead. Luciana and her workshop are doing precisely that. But it’s a drop in the ocean, it would be great if there were more opportunities for all detainees. Who knows, maybe things will change sooner or later…”
Nada, Serbian, 42 years old, sentenced to three years and six months.
“When I manage to look at myself in a mirror (because here in prison, for safety reasons, there aren’t many) I look old. Sometimes I frighten myself, I see my eyes and realize how much I’ve changed in so little time. Then I talk to myself and try to understand why I messed up. In ten months of prison I still haven’t managed to come up with an explanation. Throughout my life I had the opportunity to do things that weren’t right and I never did them. I always worked and I taught my kids that it’s important to be honest. But now I’m in prison. I made a mistake that I could have and should have avoided. If I had been an inexperienced young girl it might have been more understandable; you don’t do these things when you’re 41 years old… I think and rethink about the choices I made: it’s an obsession. And I think about my children. I don’t want to hurt them; I deserve to be punished but they don’t. But instead they’re suffering because of me. That’s what’s running through my head every day. If I had stayed closed in my cell with these thoughts, I think I would have gone crazy. Fortunately, three months ago, they accepted me into the sewing shop, a great relief for my mind. Now I continue my soul searching, but in a more constructive manner. Now I don’t just feel that I am a person who made a mistake, a useless person, who deserves to be punished. I know that the bags we sew with scrap fabrics will be used, we are making something useful and giving life back to something that was going to be thrown away. And by learning to work, we are also learning many other things. In the rest of the prison there’s a lot of hypocrisy and oftentimes people talk just to vent their frustrations or say mean things. In the workshop, on the other hand, we are focused and when someone speaks it’s because there’s something that needs to be talked about. We are people just the same, but now, with an objective to work toward and the chance to use our creativity, we are no longer destructive and we learn how not to be destructive outside of the workshop as well. And we learn a lot of other things. For example, that one cannot work alone, we all have to give each other a hand. Because the workshop functions like a watch: if one part doesn’t work right, the whole thing stops. In the end, our little world inside the prison also helps us understand a lot of things about our society.”
Domiria, Italian, 34 years old, sentenced to twenty-six years, six months, and fifteen days.
“I was studying law at the university. I had taken three exams when I was free and I was determined to go on studying [in prison]. It wasn’t possible. On paper there is a university center here, but in reality the instructors never helped me. They came just to have me fill out the tuition form and pay. I don’t even have my booklet [where the exams a student has passed are recorded], I am not allowed to have a computer… I had to give up. On the other hand, why should an instructor, who is poorly paid, come to work in such a difficult setting? And anyway, there are six instructors, psychologists and criminologists for one thousand five hundred detainees. Among other things, they also have the task of determining whether I am a danger to society. How can they determine that if they’ve seen me four or five times in the five years and six months that I have already served? And the health services don’t work either. Every time you have some pain they tell you it’s anxiety and all they have for you is psychotropic drugs, pain killers and antidepressants. If you’re lucky there’s some tachipirina [paracetamol], but not very often. Prison like this just makes you a worse person, it doesn’t rehabilitate you. And then, into this desolation, a sewing shop arrived where, in addition to a job, we learn the rules of civil conduct. Even the most indomitable, if they want to continue working in the sewing shop, have to develop the ability to talk about things using a language that’s different from the violent idiom of prison. It takes time, there are moments that are not easy, but when we all work together we can manage. Luciana has taught us that nothing gets thrown away, that everything can be recycled or reused … we detainees too. And she’s right, we see it day by day. The success of our sewing works is a lesson in civil education for everyone. I am proud to work for Made In Carcere and I would like to continue even after I have served my sentence, because a prison that rehabilitates is an advantage for all of society. The people who are imprisoned today were your neighbors yesterday and they will be again when they get out.”
About The Author:
Currently based in Milan, Enzo Dal Verme is a portrait photographer that has been working in the photography industry for over 15 years. His work has been published in Vanity Fair, l’Uomo Vogue, Marie Claire, Panorama, Glamour, The Times, Grazia, Madame Figaro, Elle and many other magazines. He recently published in the States the book Storytelling for Photojournalists.
Enzo also teaches at the Portrait Photography Retreats and at the Workshop Ritratto and has over 15 years of experience facilitating groups.
Follow Enzo on Twitter and on Medium.
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