Lombardy prisons: unsustainable situation, unions proclaim state of agitation among the Penitentiary Police
State of agitation among the penitentiary police.
This was proclaimed on Thursday 20 June by all the trade union organizations representing the Penitentiary officers.
«All prisons in Lombardy are going through a very critical period resulting from the very serious and chronic shortage of Penitentiary Police personnel in all roles – we read in the note signed by the trade union organizations -.
The figure of prison overcrowding, in addition to being alarming, is another critical factor, in fact there are almost 9,000 prisoners, with an ever-increasing trend – almost three thousand more than the regulatory capacity which stands at 6,154 beds – with a percentage that the highest in the entire nation is expected at 145%.
This leads to an increase in critical events every day, such as insults, threats and even serious assaults, fires and attempted riots as well as acts of violence between prisoners, acts of self-harm and/or escape attempts and even, unfortunately, suicides. ».
«Despite the various union requests to the Regional Department of the Penitentiary Administration, to date there has not been – continues the note – adoption of measures aimed at alleviating the discomfort of the policemen or deflationary measures towards the large inmate population which includes numerous subjects with mental fragility, psychiatric patients, drug addicts, pharmacophiliacs, subjects not accustomed to respecting the rules, extremely violent subjects”.
The union therefore denounces «little, if not absent, attention on the part of the Administration to the protection of the safety and security of policemen; compression of individual rights such as revocations and/or deferrals of weekly rest periods or failure to grant ordinary leave.
Penitentiary Police personnel are forced to cover multiple service positions, creating an additional workload and responsibility with inevitable repercussions on the quality of the work carried out, creating high stress situations, with shifts that can reach up to twelve working hours a day, without then to be recognized for their overtime work, this will inevitably undermine the effectiveness and efficiency of their action as well as actually jeopardizing the main factors to be ensured within prisons such as: order, discipline and safety”.
The policemen in the Lombard prisons «are literally exasperated, exhausted and unmotivated, carrying out their institutional mandate in absolutely precarious and unsafe conditions, managing hundreds of prisoners, occupying more service positions and taking on a greater workload of responsibility but also of work and psychophysical stress.
Every day, with these conditions, they fear for their physical safety and from the numerous attacks which have forced several dozen policemen to resort to the care of the emergency rooms, receiving numerous days of prognosis which constitute a further absence from service of the unfortunate victims attacked”.
Trade union organizations continue to report that prisoner translation services are also understocked.
«I am sorry to have to highlight a form of inertia on the part of politicians but mainly of the Regional Penitentiary Administration in not having adopted serious and urgent measures so that in Lombardy the minimum and acceptable working and safety conditions are created within all penitentiary institutions for adults and minors and therefore alleviate as much as possible the numerous inconveniences of policemen and women and also improve the detention conditions of the detainees which, consequently, have a negative impact on the staff. The aforementioned conditions in which the Lombardy penitentiary institutions find themselves today have led all the trade unions to take a harsh stance towards the criminal administration of Lombardy prisons”.
