Finanziamento UE – NextGenerationEU PRIN 2022 "Controlling or Caring? Theories and practices of (neo)institutionalization - CON.CA" PNRR M4C2 investimento 1.1 Avviso 104/2022

The research aims to scrutinize the process of neo-institutionalization based on old and new techniques of medicalization of otherness and on psychiatric control. Therefore the project connects two different perspectives, Prison Studies and Disability Studies, strongly linked by extensive reflections on the concept of institutionalization. In the project perspective, neo-institutionalization is a set of practices that leads to segregation of vulnerability, considered as a de facto or de jure deprivation of liberty within an enclosed environment without the full consent of the individuals, but justified by reason of self- or other-harm prevention. The confinement into institutions is the last stage of a wider social and juridical process, consisting of formal and informal rules, discourses and practices. Therefore, the project specifically targets two vulnerable groups -in part overlapping- criminal offenders and persons with disability (including persons with psychiatric diseases and elder populations), both characterized by a deeply-rooted mechanism of exclusion from contemporary society. The research explores the hypothesis of an ongoing trans-institutionalization between the criminal justice and healthcare systems, since the instruments of coercive control acquired a supplementary “new” therapeutic role and vice versa, rehabilitative measures also have coercive functions. In this sense, psychiatry and mental health plays a key-role, because they require balancing “care” and “control”. The research specifically aim to: (a) Define the conceptual framework, reflecting on the process of (neo)institutionalization; (b) Explore the places of psychiatric segregation defined as “institutional archipelago”, through quantitative and qualitative methods, including direct observation; (c) Study the professional cultures implied in (neo)institutionalization; (d) Focus on medicine and psychiatry as instruments of care, control and incapacitation. The project involves the Garante Nazionale delle persone private della libertà (Italian NPM) as sub-unit to favor the access to the field of research and the dissemination strategy. The project also includes a supervisory committee, formed by mental health practitioners to favor a dialogical interpretation of the results and to discuss ethical issues. The topic of the project is even more challenging since the Covid-19 pandemic underlined the urgency of a public debate on institutionalization, especially on the operation of long-term care institutions, where contagion and deaths have been higher than in the outside world. For this reason, the Plan Next Generation Italy (Action 5 component 2) specifically addresses this issue underlining the need of investment on the so called social infrastructures with a community based approach, avoiding segregation. In this sense, the expected results of the project could have a high impact.