Violence at the Beccaria juvenile prison in Milan
April 26, 2024
6:45
The lawyer Stefano Deluca, lawyer of one of the boys who reported the mistreatment in the Beccaria juvenile prison in Milan, speaks to Fanpage.it. “I saw his face covered in bruises, I thought he had argued with other inmates, then he told me he had been beaten.”
L’lawyer Stefano Deluca he is often involved in the causes of the weakest and those who live on the margins of rich Milan. Some time ago the story of a boy arrested for robbery and detained in the Cesare Beccaria juvenile prison was brought to his attention. It was the lawyer himself, during a hearing, who was one of the first to notice the young man’s conditions in the penitentiary institution.
The boy is among those who reported having suffered physical attacks by prison police officers in an investigation, carried out by the Milan Prosecutor’s Office, which led to 13 arrests and 8 public service suspensions against staff working at the Beccaria between 2022 and 2024. Deluca tells Fanpage.it the story of his client.
Stefano Deluca
Lawyer, when did you realize that something was wrong?
Because the torture of minors by penitentiary officers at Beccaria leads them back to crime
My client was being remanded in prison. I was following this boy in the juvenile criminal case and a preliminary hearing was scheduled just before Christmas 2022 to decide whether to proceed with the summary judgment or the ordinary one.
That morning at the end of December I had arrived at the court before everyone else, followed by the boy’s mother, the social worker and finally him, who arrived from Beccaria. As he saw me, he hugged me and said “I don’t want to go back there anymore, you have to do everything so that I don’t go back to prison”.
I saw bruises on his face, it struck me, so much so that when I asked him who he had argued with, I thought he had gotten into a fight with some other inmate.
And instead?
Instead he told me that they had beaten him. It was late in the evening, around ten or eleven, and he wanted to smoke, so he asked the guards for a lighter (which is naturally not allowed in the cells, ed.), but no one listened to him, so he made a racket, hit on the door. So they had him go to an office and there in the office….
Did they beat him?
Yes, there must have been at least two or three people, then they put him back in the cell and closed the door. That morning she told me she was afraid of returning to Beccaria.
Had no one reported the situation?
Before the hearing, as Beccaria’s educator arrived, I went to meet him and said “Look, my client told me that he was beaten inside the prison. Furthermore, it’s obvious, he has bruises on his face”.
The educator immediately told me “I know, I met him yesterday morning”. It seems to me that he also told me that he had taken him to the infirmary to see the doctor and that he would have made or had made a complaint about the behavior of some officers.
He reassured me, he also seemed like a decent person for the fact that he had taken care. This is why I said to myself: “Events happen but there is someone who doesn’t close their eyes”.
Had your client talked about it with anyone else?
He had certainly spoken to his mother, so much so that she had mentioned the mistreatment to me, however, before seeing him, we really didn’t know the facts.
Did your client return to Beccaria after the hearing?
No, on that occasion I had some exceptions, accepted by the Court, which made the trial go back to the initial phase. Furthermore, the so-called ‘phase terms’ had also ended because he was in fact in precautionary custody, he had not yet undergone the trial, therefore he was in preventive detention and, once the maximum time limit had expired, he was released immediately, as in fact happened. He was very happy about this because he feared that if he returned to prison he might be beaten again.
The complaint arrived three months later. How come?
Initially my client didn’t want to make complaints, I was the one who encouraged him, but it took some time. His reasoning was: “If I report those in the police force, then they will somehow make me pay.”
His fear was probably also linked to the other criminal case he had underway, he was afraid of ending up at Beccaria again and having to deal with those officers. So, for him to be calm, we waited until he was about to reach the age of majority before reporting.”
How is the boy today?
Meanwhile he is no longer in Milan, he is trying to build a new life outside the circle of friends he had before, he has started working. It’s better that he stay calm and that for now he doesn’t return to where he lived before.
