Failure to compensate the damage caused by an offence is not, in itself, sufficient grounds for refusing affidamento in prova al servizio sociale (supervised probation), under Article 47 of the Italian Prison Act.
The Court of Cassation considered the case of a person convicted of bankruptcy offences whose application for the alternative measure had been refused by the supervisory court, which attached decisive weight to the absence of any steps to compensate the victims.
The Supreme Court quashed the order and remitted the case, emphasising the need for an overall assessment of the convicted person’s circumstances: personal characteristics, conduct following the offence, financial position and realistic prospects of social reintegration.
Failure to pay compensation may certainly be relevant to the court’s assessment, but it cannot become an automatic bar to the measure, especially where non-payment reflects genuine financial inability.
The judgment thus reiterates that supervised probation must be based on an individualised assessment of the measure’s capacity to support rehabilitation and prevent further offending, rather than being made conditional on full prior reparation of all financial consequences of the offence.
