“He committed suicide in Teramo during the night, apparently by suffocating himself in his bed, the 43rd inmate to take his own life during the year. The rescue efforts were of no avail. The man, 77 years old, was placed in the section intended for prisoners for crimes of great social disapproval, so-called ‘protected’, of the Castrogno prison for having collaborated with his son, the material executor of the crime, in hiding the body of the former wife in the Macerata area in 2017″. This was reported by Gennarino De Fazio, general secretary of the Uilpa penitentiary police.
“It is now an endless death spiral in prisons. There are already 43 inmates who committed suicide during the year, to which must be added 4 members of the penitentiary police who took their own lives. All this – De Fazio denounces – in the substantial indifference of the government. While at the G7 meeting we are rightly discussing how to achieve the release of the hostages held by Hamas, in Italy we are unable to protect the prisoners in state custody, with very serious repercussions that even affect its own servants”.
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“With everything that is happening in our prisons, now widely illegal, the absolute silence of the Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio, is embarrassing. The keeper of the seals, if there is one, strikes a blow or draws his own conclusions. A prison decree is needed to deflate prison overcrowding, there are over 14 thousand more prisoners than there are places available, to allow the extraordinary and accelerated hiring of officers in the penitentiary police force, more than 18 thousand are missing, and to ensure the strengthening of assistance healthcare, especially of a psychiatric nature,” he continues.
“At the same time – concludes the Uilpa general secretary – the entire penal execution system must be reformed, the penitentiary administration department and the juvenile and community justice department must be re-engineered and the penitentiary police force must be reorganised. There is no more time.”
