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The industrial area inside the Milan Bollate Prison reopens. The new production facility will be managed by Coimec Spa, a leading company in the world of industrial insulation for public and oil facilities, which has already trained and subsequently employed 12 inmates since last August.
The initiative was presented today in the Milan penitentiary institute by the regional superintendent of the Penitentiary Administration Maria Milano Franco D'Aragona, the president of the Milan Court of Surveillance Giovanna Di Rosa, the Head of Sustainability Italy & Continental Europe of Lendlease-Programma 2121 Nadia Boschi, the sole director of Coimec Spa Nunzio Perna and the director of the penitentiary institute Giorgio Leggieri. The head of the Department of Penitentiary Administration Giovanni Russo also spoke in a video message.
The project was set up as a public-private partnership to offer training and work opportunities to prisoners and to counter the risk of recidivism. It involves the Lombardy Region, the Municipality of Milan, the Ministry of Justice-DAP, the Milan Court of Supervision, the multinational company Lendlease and is part of Programma 2121, which brings together companies active in the redevelopment of the former Expo 2015 area.
The Bollate industrial area was created in May 2020 with the #ricuciamo programme, aimed at the industrial production of protective facemasks. In March 2024, the decommissioning of the area began with the securing of the machinery inside 8 insulated containers. Thus, several talks were opened with companies interested in taking over the industrial area and starting a productive reconversion that would allow the 22 inmates involved not to lose their jobs.
Thanks to a variant of Programma 2121 at Mind District, Coimec, a world leader in industrial insulation for public and oil facilities, was identified. Last August, a part of the workshop was installed in the industrial area of the Bollate prison and the first 12 inmates, adequately trained, started to work in the production of aluminium sheets. The subsequent acquisition of advanced machinery will significantly increase productivity, reduce processing times and increase the number of inmates employed to 25.
With COIMEC's membership of Programma 2121, moreover, 30 more inmates from Milan Bollate were started work in the Mind District construction sites.
‘Today's initiative represents one of the most important occasions in which we can finally talk about prison economics’ said the head of the DAP, Giovanni Russo. ‘What we are presenting today is a real industrial project: the story of a path of growth and evolution, born as a result of the pandemic and which continues today thanks to the collaboration of many parties involved. A very advanced philosophy, therefore, which places the true needs, also in perspective, of the prisoners at the centre of the execution of the sentence’.
‘Programma 2121 has proven with three SROI evaluations that it is a model of very high validity,’ commented Nadia Boschi, Head of Sustainability Italy & Continental Europe. ‘This project with the Bollate Prison and the company Coimec is strategic to the scale-up of Programma 2121, as it aims at overcoming an operational vulnus: capitalising on the hiatus between public administration time and industry time, providing the prisoner waiting for art. 21 to train and be known by the company, and allowing the company to have trained personnel ready for a job placement in a non-protected environment, typical of Programma 2121, as soon as art. 21 is granted’.
‘The inauguration of Coimec's new industrial headquarters as a variant of Programma 2121 represents much more than just an industrial expansion for us’ says Coimec CEO Nunzio Perna. ‘It is a concrete symbol of our commitment as a company to a vision of growth that focuses not only on innovation and productivity, but also on inclusion and social responsibility. We were asked to become part of the programme, today we are the ones thanking Minister Nordio and the head of DAP Giovanni Russo for this great opportunity for the human and cultural value it expresses'.
