NAPLES. Escapes, suicides, assaults, Covid infections multiplied by eight times. The situation in Italian prisons is increasingly alarming. The news reports now every week new alarms and new dramas. Thus the controversy over prisons is rekindled.
The breaking latest news of the last few hours is emblematic. A 45-year-old of Albanian origin escaped – and shortly afterwards captured – from the Bellizzi prison, while the search for the other two escaped inmates is still ongoing: a forty-year-old of Moroccan origin and a 22-year-old Romanian. The searches are coordinated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Avellino. Just this morning, meanwhile, a 22-year-old inmate of Moroccan origin killed himself in the Brindisi prison: the man was found lifeless at 5.50 am by the prison police. He had been arrested yesterday for resisting a public official.
This latest tragedy only increases the number of suicides while being held in various prisons, from north to south. Gennarino De Fazio, general secretary of Uilpa penitentiaries, underlines in this regard that in the first 12 days of the year there were 4 inmates who died of suicide, one following an assault in his cell, another prison emergency. “If the circumstances weren’t tragic – commented De Fazio bitterly, adding also the three escapes – we would have to ask ourselves if the Government had not by chance thought of resolving the overcrowding and the prison emergency in this way”. The system, says De Fazio, “is in disarray and politics has the moral responsibility of every victim”. Minister Cartabia, concludes the trade unionist, “ensures attention and priority but we continue to see only neglect and carelessness”. In Naples – the penitentiary police unions still recall – a prisoner who had been beaten by his cellmate died after a few days of hospitalization, while another inmate died in Sanremo, already suffering from tuberculosis, who had last month set the mattress on fire, getting burned and seriously poisoned.
On the evasion front, after the Vercelli episode, the news reports today of new escapes from prison. “This cannot go on – says Cosimo Maria Ferri, member of the Justice Commission of the Chamber (IV) at this point – we ask Minister Cartabia to take serious action, verify what is happening and put in place a serious security plan, guaranteeing means and personnel for effective control “. Beyond the security issues, the risk, in front of public opinion, Ferri emphasizes, is that “the work of so many men and women of the penitentiary police and the role of directors who serve professionally” is also questioned. . The Turin case with the resignation of the management is a very significant alarm bell.
This morning, in the meantime, for the facts of the prison of Santa Maria Capua Vetere, in the province of Caserta, eighty inmates victims of the beatings that took place in April 2020 who asked to become a civil party in the process: 108 agents of the Penitentiary and officials of the Dap. The GUP Pasquale D’Angelo will decide on the admission of the requests in the hearing of next January 25th. At that time he will also have to decide whether to admit the civil action of three associations, the Ministry of Justice, the ASL of Caserta and the regional guarantor of detainees Samuele Ciambriello who with his complaints started the investigation into the violence committed in the Caserta prison. On the request for admission presented by Francesco Piccirillo, Ciambriello’s lawyer, the lawyers of many defendants have raised objections, asking the judge not to let the guarantor enter the trial.
And it is precisely from this prison already under the spotlight that the news arrives in the same hours that a policeman from the Penitentiary was attacked yesterday by an inmate. «In the Nile Department – says Donato Capece, general secretary of Sappe – an Italian prisoner, while making a video call, attacked three officers with a stool. One of his colleagues ended up in hospital, and only thanks to the police did the situation not degenerate ». Sappe returns to denounce for the umpteenth time the daily operational difficulties faced in particular by the Penitentiary Police units in service in Campania: “Under staff, not worthily paid, with little training and professional updating, employed in daily services well beyond 9 hours of service, without any suitable instrument to guarantee their own physical safety ».
For Patrizio Gonnella, president of the Antigone Association, the road is one and by now urgent: «Accelerate on the road to reforms. Many things can also be done without going through the legislative path, but through a modification of the execution regulation of the penitentiary system. A path that the Commission for the innovation of the penitentiary system led by Professor Marco Ruotolo also suggested ».
. “The picture that this beginning of 2022 offers us – he stresses is not the best. This is why it is important to foresee urgent measures to reduce overcrowding. There are still thousands of prisoners with sentences of less than three years and that, therefore,” , could access alternative measures to detention. We must ensure that this happens “. “It is important to accelerate on the path of reforms – continues the president of the Association – Many things can also be done without going through the legislative path, but through a modification of the execution regulation of the penitentiary system. A path that the Commission has also suggested. for the innovation of the penitentiary system led by Professor Marco Ruotolo. Precisely in terms of reforms we welcome the words spoken on Monday by Minister Marta Cartabia, who placed interventions on prison among the priorities “.