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sanctions, sometimes, also in presence of serious violence against the person andnotwithstanding the contestation of “important” criminal juridical cases, one hasthe impression that all the investigations undertaken are directed towards anunsatisfactory result.The causes of this situation are various. In the first place often in the trialsrelated to the exploitation of prostitution the accused arrive at making a fullconfession, aware of the benefits that this may bring at penal and trial level: aboveall, if with a clean record, the madams opt for a procedure of applying thepunishment at the request of the parties (the so-called “plea bargain”) or, afterhaving opted for the abbreviated trial, they admit the accusations bringing aboutthe rapid end to the trial, avoiding further investigations.The confession is so that in many cases they are permitted the generalisedextenuating circumstances (Art 62 bis) which, together with the lowering of thepunishment for the rite chosen and the reduction given to the fact that normally itdeals with crimes united with the tie of continuation, determines a considerablelowering of the sanction.In a judicial case of second grade, the possibility of the so-called “plea bargainin appeal” (Art. 599 Penal Code Procedures) - if not opted for in the first degree -permits a further reduction in the sanction. The generalised impression is that in thesecond grade of judgement there is a general favour for this system which allowsthe general prosecutor to avoid debates, therefore saving time, and the panel ofjudges to “not deliver a sentence”; the risk is to not pay attention to concrete cases,but to always grant such reduction.To this picture one must now add the recent widened plea bargain introducedby the Law No. 134 of 12 June 2003. This law raised the ceiling within which it ispossible to ask for the application of the sentence at the request of the parties (itpasses from 2 to 5 years net of circumstances and the reduction of a third, forwhich the basic sentence can also be of 10 years) 96 , so that crimes like homicide,sexual violence, aggravated hold-ups, corruption or extortion can be included.The accused may be judged according to this rite only when the publicprosecutor gives consent: as it was for the other forms of plea bargain it will be theresponsibility of the public prosecutor to make the right choice in a concrete case,seeking to avoid generalised applications that can invalidate the objectives of thecriminal policy for the fight against the traffic of persons for sexual exploitation.The other sore point of the new regulations is the total lack of consideration ofthe position of the victim and the injured party: the sentence, in fact, is not valid inthe civil courts so, to obtain satisfaction, one must start an ad hoc civil proceeding.Moreover, the penitentiary benefits and alternative modalities of execution of thesentence 97 , are today inserted on sanctions which are already greatly reduced duringthe proceeding. This was part of a system in which this multiple mechanism toreduce the sentence in the penal process did not exist, but where the correction ofthe duration of the sentence was up to the judge.96The objective is the reduction of the workload of the judiciary and efficiency, but on this point whetherthis is translated into efficacy is dubious. On this point, see Kostoris (2003, page 9).97See for an exhaustive treatment Canepa and Merlo (2002, page 211 and following).