The initiative announced by the National Conference of Territorial Guarantors of Persons Deprived of Personal Liberty for April 18th, one month after the appeal by the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella. At midday, at the same time in all the regions and in the five Calabrian cities, the names of the inmates and penitentiary police officers who took their own lives were read out. Followed by events and press conferences organized by the Calabrian territorial guarantors.
On the night preceding the demonstration, the thirty-second suicide of a person detained since the beginning of 2024 was recorded. However, there were four suicides by penitentiary police officers, one of whom was from Calabria (on duty at the prison in Cosenza). . “An unacceptable drip“, thus began the regional Guarantor of the rights of persons detained or deprived of personal liberty, Luca Mugliapresent at the initiative held at the Palace of Justice of Cosenza, with the participation of the municipal and provincial guarantors, Francesco Terranova And Francesco Cosentiniorganized in collaboration with the Bar Association of the city of Bruzia, the “Fausto Gullo” Criminal Chamber and the Prison Observatory of the Italian Criminal Chambers Union.
“We have adhered to the request coming from the National Conference of Territorial Guarantors, sharing the contents of the document signed by the spokesperson Samuele Ciambriello and the need to stop at the same time and on the same day in memory of the many broken lives – stated the Guarantor Muglia –. We hope to have given an important signal and to have contributed to raising awareness among legislators, civil society and public opinion. We are aware that clichés, labels and stereotypes too often prevent us from seeing the real dimension of the phenomenon.
It is not so much or just a matter of understanding the different causes that generate suicides in prison, i.e. overcrowding, staff shortages, psychological fragility and dilapidated structures, but of accepting that it is above all the weakest groups who are overwhelmed and “crushed”. . The numbers say it: 64% of the people who took their own lives in the last two years had committed crimes against property, 60% of suicides occurred in the first six months of detention, 40% of suicides occurred beyond the first six months, with a significant percentage in the last period of detention and the involvement of many homeless prisoners. The circuit affected by the suicides is the medium security one.
Less than 10% of people with psychiatric pathologies have taken their own lives. Add to this the fact that the prisoners who are serving a residual sentence of no more than five years are around 32,000, compared to an overall total of almost 62,000 units. The regional framework – concluded the Guarantor Muglia – rmirrors national data, confirming the fact that suicides and acts of self-harm in prison involve vulnerable people, prisoners who have committed low or medium serious crimes, those in their first experience of detention or about to be discharged but without family networks or social organizations that can encourage their reintegration.
It is not up to the Guarantors of the rights of persons deprived of liberty to indicate regulatory or legislative solutions, but we must act quickly. It’s an unacceptable drip, there’s no more time!”.
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