A waiter from Porto Azzurro prison keeps his job at a Tuscan beach restaurant for the winter

All summer, Lucio served tables at Bagno Gilda, a beachfront restaurant in Forte dei Marmi, and went back to prison after every shift. His work was good enough that the owner has kept him on for the winter. He found the job through Seconda Chance, a nonprofit that has helped arrange more than 950 jobs for detainees across Italy.

The owner of Bagno Gilda watched him work for a whole season. When the summer ended, the owner did not let him go but renewed his contract into the winter. For Lucio, that means paid work after the tourists have left, and a working life that does not stop when the summer does.

The prison he returns to stands on the island of Elba, inside Forte Longone, a star-shaped fortress that the Spanish crown began building in 1603 to guard the bay. Italian law has allowed detainees to work outside prison since 1975, under Article 21 of the penitentiary law. The prison director has to approve each placement, and a supervising magistrate has to confirm it. The law exists, but few people use it. Italy's National Council for Economics and Labour has found that only a minority of detainees do any work at all, and most of those who do clean or cook inside the prison.

Seconda Chance was set up in 2022 to close that gap. Its founder, Flavia Filippi, is a journalist at TgLa7. The group searches for employers who are willing to hire people in prison or recently released. In Tuscany the work is coordinated by Stefano Fabbri, a former ANSA journalist. Last year the group arranged between 16 and 23 placements in the region, and around 70 to 80 over three years.

The jobs vary widely. Inside Porto Azzurro, a call centre now trains selected detainees and employs them in customer support. Other detainees have learned to carve pietra serena, the grey-blue sandstone from the hills around Florence that Brunelleschi used for the columns of San Lorenzo. Others have gone into shops, building sites and warehouses, and one teaches guitar.

The tax credit comes from a law passed in 2000 and named after Carlo Smuraglia, the senator who sponsored it. Money can persuade an employer to try. It cannot keep someone in a job. What kept Lucio at Bagno Gilda was the way he did the work, day after day, in front of an owner who was paying attention.

Italy's prisons are overcrowded, and most people leave them without having worked. Among those who have held a steady job, the reported reoffending rate is 2%. Lucio will be carrying plates through the winter as well.