From forced labour to indirect coercion to work: new frontiers of prison labour exploitation

The practice of forced labour has survived all criminal reforms occurred during over 150 years of Italian history, giving to the State an indiscriminate power of exploiting the convicts' labor force. Only recently, both the policy makers and the case law have acknowledged the conflict between this practice and the principles of the constitutional State, based on the respect of the fundamental rights and the labour protection. A reform of 2018 intervened on the issue, repealing the convicts' legal obligation to work. Unfortunately, the same reform frustrated this result, by introducing a new form of "public works", under the control of the State or private NGOs, which represents an indirect form of coercion to work that violates the provisions of the ILO's Forced labour Convention.