Made in Carcere: integral human development in extreme conditions

This paper analyzes the case of Made in Carcere, an innovative social enterprise providing jobs to one of the most marginalized groups in society: convicted women. Relying on an extensive database that covers 8 years of activity, we propose a micro-level analysis of the processes adopted by Made in Carcere to foster the integral human development of convicted women, its target stakeholders. We show that this complex effort has successfully unfolded through two macro-processes: creating a safe space for experimentation and allowing convicted women to bridge their experience to the outside reality. Our work provides evidence of an organization that successfully confronts the restrictive and dehumanizing setting of prisons by means of market mechanisms that can foster convicted women’s integral human development.