“Urgent interventions are needed regarding suicides in prison”, here are the numbers in Sannio

Benevento

The announced demonstration took place in Piazza Risorgimento Patrizia Sannino, Guarantor of persons deprived of personal liberty for the Province of Benevento, at the same time as those promoted in 86 other Italian squares by the National Conference of Territorial Guarantors of persons deprived of personal liberty, on the theme: “Urgent interventions are needed on suicides in prison”.

The Guarantor Sannino, who was surrounded by representatives of the Social Network Association, of the Criminal Chamber of Benevento, of the Democratic Jurists – territorial section of Benevento, of the sugar bars association, of the Gramigna association, first read a document of the national conference and recalling that in recent days the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella had called for measures aimed at stopping the trickle of suicides within prison walls, the Conference of Guarantors made an appeal to all the institutions aimed at «analyzing and deciphering the dramatic phenomenon of overcrowding prison”, considered the triggering cause of the phenomenon of self-harming gestures. The Conference of Guarantors, in reiterating, once again, the urgent need for urgent interventions, recalled that «the majority of prisoners live, for over 20 hours a day, in overcrowded cells, from which they only leave in the so-called. “hours of air”. This represents, without a doubt, a clear violation of the principles and guarantees recognized by our Constitutional Charter and by the penitentiary system in prison”.

The Conference of Guarantors therefore asked Parliamentarians and the Minister of Justice to adopt “specific and urgent rules”, including “alternative measures to detention, making the Supervisory Jurisdiction efficient and effective, also by allocating more resources. In fact, there are several thousand prisoners with a final sentence of less than or equal to three years in prison.”
Citing a 1949 document signed by Piero Calamandrei, the Conference of Guarantors then asked those elected to the regional, municipal and provincial councils to visit the prisons, because – “you have to see them, you have to have been there, to realize it”.

Guarantor Sannino then read a memorandum drawn up by Samuele Ciambriello, Guarantor for the Campania Region of prisoners’ rights. The Ciambriello document, with the title: “Critical events in the year 2023 of the Campania penitentiary institutions”, lists the following data:

• 5 SUICIDES: 3 in the province of Caserta and 2 in the province of Naples;

• 32 DEATHS OF NATURAL DEATH: 2 in the province of Avellino, 2 in the province of Caserta, 1 in the province of Benevento1 in the province of Salerno and 26 in the province of Naples;

• 156 SUICIDE ATTEMPTS: 27 in the province of Avellino, 27 in the province of Caserta, 19 in the province of Benevento32 in the province of Salerno and 51 in the province of Naples;

• 1,330 ACTS OF SELF-HARM: 134 in the province of Avellino, 283 in the province of Caserta, 68 in the province of Benevento218 in the province of Salerno and 597 in the province of Naples;

• 938 HUNGER AND/OR THIRST STRIKES: 185 in the province of Avellino, 267 in the province of Caserta, 72 in the province of Benevento, 78 in the province of Salerno and 336 in the province of Naples;

Then the Guarantor Sannino read the names of the inmates who committed suicide in Italian prisons in 2024, those who died from other causes, and finally the names of the Penitentiary Police Officers who took their own lives. 2024, those who died from other causes, and finally the names of the Penitentiary Police Officers who took their own lives.