San Vittore, Sala: “Unacceptable conditions, the minister should clarify his intentions”
“Like all contemporary issues, the possible transfer of San Vittore is also a complex issue and worthy of open and conscious reflection, but I think it is time for the Ministry of Justice to clarify the real intentions. At least the cells can be restructured and the capacity increased to a more correct dimension? This is what I ask. I am not among those who are pushing for a transfer of the prison but I think it is now unacceptable to see prisoners living in San Vittore in those conditions”.
Sala: “San Vittore, conditions beyond the imaginable”
In the morning episode of his podcast “Buongiorno Milano” the mayor Joseph Hall rekindles the spotlight on the conditions of the San Vittore prison. It is the same alarm launched last summer, the same arguments and positions in the field. However, the holder of the competent ministry with the settlement in via Arenula di is different Charles Nordio. “Occasionally we talk about prisons and the conditions that prisoners talk about – continues Sala – perhaps as a consequence of some tragic event, but it is objective that if we fail to create acceptable living conditions in our prisons, any path of re-education he will have a very hard life. San Vittore prison is a very clear example of this. Anyone who has the opportunity to visit our prison could easily verify that the living conditions of the inmates are beyond acceptable, even a little “Beyond imaginable. This summer, one of the hottest in our history, the Antigone association certified 190 percent crowding in San Vittore compared to its theoretical capacity”.
San Vittore, Sala: “Situation that has gone beyond the limits of civilization”
“It is a situation that has far exceeded the limits of civilization” and “there could be many reasons for a necessary reflection on the matter – he points out and reiterates – but I would like to underline one thing: I personally believe that many, if not all, could be overcome by the observation that it is not part of the heart of Milan to oblige a prisoner, perhaps pregnant, to share a space of very few square meters, just over 10, with three other prisoners, having to use a Turkish bathroom”. “Sorry if I’m blunt, but that’s what I personally verified a few months ago. These living conditions are unworthy of Milan and its tradition of a fair and welcoming city”.
The history of the San Vittore prison
The mayor then recounts that “opinions have often clashed between the desire not to exclude the San Vittore prison from city life, thus keeping it where it is, and the request, on the other hand, to have a more ‘ modern and able to offer more acceptable living conditions to its guests”. He then reconstructs that “certainly a central figure in this affair was Cardinal Martini: it was precisely in the prison of San Vittore that the cardinal made his first pastoral visit, it was in 1981. He visited the cells and courtyards for four days, spoke with detained, with the agents, and also met the terrorists locked up in the maximum security section. Then every Christmas Martini celebrated mass in the prison repeating that San Vittore is the heart of Milan. Taking a cue from these words – he underlines – many have always expressed their opposition to the hypothesis of closing and moving the prison, then there are also logical reasons linked to the staff who work there, to the large number of volunteers who work there, to the role of defenders of the prisoners”.
The prison of San Vittore, built according to the model of the Panopticon, was originally built in a sparsely populated area. Then it was a central structure in the life of Milan in the 1900s and played a particularly tragic role in the Second World War. Between December 1943 and January 1945, San Vittore was partly dedicated to the confinement of Jews destined for German concentration camps, and the day after April 25, 1945 it was freed by the Matteotti brigades. From the post-war period onwards, the critical situation of the prison has been denounced several times. Prison which in the meantime has been joined by the new structures of Opera and Bollate.
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