Turin's CIE - International University College of Turin

crime of prostitution. So, they always ask us the reason why they are still inside the CIE”
(Interview 1);
“There is also a portion of migrants who have understood the reason for [CIE] detention,
which is difficult to tolerate for those who come from long periods of [prison] detention.
The reason for their complaint is that they have already served their sentence in prison”
(Interview 5);
“Certainly, many link the idea of detention to having committed a crime. Then in this case,
they do not understand why detention is necessary given that “they did nothing”. One does
not find a justification, even on an ethical level. The worst is when the detention is
extended” (Interview 10);
“The idea that detainees have is: "I'm here for no reason". Generally you think you are
detained because you did something wrong, that's why they say: "I have done nothing
wrong, why am I here?" The idea of detention is generally related to the idea of a
punishment after having committed a crime. When they are aware of this (I’m referring in
particular to the many among them who have been previously detained in prison and have
served their sentence) they don't understand the reason for a detention in CIE”
(Interview 8).
This perspective was consistent with the following detainee’s description of his difficulties:
“[The hardest thing is] [n]ot knowing when they are going to let me out. After six months
they told me “in one month”, then they told me “one more month”. This morning I spoke
with the Immigration Office and they said maybe at the end of this month they will let me
out. I’m tired. I was in jail, I left jail and immediately after I returned to another jail”
(Interview 19).
Under article 13 of Decreto Legislativo 286/1998, the expulsion decree is the formal
document that serves to notify detainees of the decision for their expulsion. However, several
interviewees commented on the problem that written notice can be difficult to understand for
people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities with different levels of access to
education:
“As for the expulsion decree, many of them do not understand what this decree is. This is
mainly due to a linguistic problem: since the document is written in Italian, it should be
accompanied by a translation in the detainee’s mother tongue. In case they [Questura] are
not able to translate it into the detainee’s mother tongue, and they must give a justification
for this, then they can provide the detainee with a translation in one of the three main
languages, English, French or Spanish, according to the preference expressed by the
detainee himself. Of course they don't really try to figure out the detainee’s linguistic skills,
they just put a cross on one of the three languages. For example, they translate arbitrarily
to English for all the people coming from Eastern Europe and to Spanish for all Latin
Americans. Moreover, detainees often have problems with understanding the content of the
document itself: it uses a specific legal parlance and it refers to legal provisions that
remain unexplained. The section concerning the motivation is very short. So many factors
actually prevent detainees from understanding what’s going on. We should also consider
that many of them cannot read and some of them can barely write their names”
(Interview 8);
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