Thanks to a tip from This Heaven Gives Me Migraine, we learn just how culturally advanced the Europeans actually are: instead of having their criminals make license plates, the Italian penal system is having them make wine.

Apparently it’s not just some small operation, they actually make 45,000 bottles of wine a year that get sold to shops and restaurants. One of them is even called “Seven Turns Of The Key” which is an Italian expression referencing the “depressing finality of imprisonment.”

On a more sober note, the article talks about all the problems with the Italian prison system that are the dark opposite of these agrarian rehab programs, and how the system is often on the radar of Amnesty International as a result.

No one has figured out yet whether this type of program really works or not, because studies aren’t done of the inmates after they get out, but I think it’s a great idea nonetheless. I wonder if the wine is any good?

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