Abstract

[Stories about prison, stories from prison: the internal point of view and the autoethnographic method as tools for reflecting on the ius puniendi] «Welcome to our city». This is how Jake Oppen-heimer welcomes Darrell Standing, the narrator of Il vagabondo delle stelle, who is locked up with Ed Morrell in an isolation cell in San Quentin prison, in a secret language con-sisting of brass knuckles debates on the wall. A city within the city, «a society unto it-self» – as Salvatore Curatolo writes in his Ergastolo ostativo. Percorsi e strategie di soprav-vivenza – the prison becomes the subject of the stories of those who live there or imag-ine living there. The aim of this contribution is to understand whether the story about prison and the story from prison can be considered fruitful tools for analysing the contemporary ius pu-niendi. In particular, we will examine whether it is possible to use Hart’s internal point of view and the autoethnographic method for a better understanding of prison reality.