ArticleAmanda Ait-Jilal, a 27-year-old transsexual convicted for drug dealing, was in her cell wondering how she'd get through another year in jail when the prison guard came round.
"Pack your stuff. You are out of here," the French immigrant recalls the guard telling her. "Take my advice. Be good."
It was 10 o'clock at night.
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Ait-Jilal is one of more than 12,000 detainees in Italy who have just been released or are about to walk free thanks to a mass pardon pushed through by Romano Prodi's centre-left government to reduce prison overcrowding.