More riots in the prisons of Lazio. Tension continues in the juvenile detention center of Casal del Marmo, where on Thursday night a fight broke out between North African inmates which was quelled by the intervention of prison police officers. Security problems also at the new Civitavecchia complex where an inmate armed with a homemade knife attacked another inmate and four officers. In Frosinone, however, a 21-year-old took his own life behind bars by suffocating himself with the contents of a camping gas can. He had been subjected to compulsory medical treatment several times. A disturbing picture that follows a few hours after the revolt by eighty prisoners in Regina Coeli prison following the seizure in the cells of knives, bars and other improper weapons hidden and self-produced, such as a grappa. According to the general secretary of the Fns Cisl Lazio Massimo Costantino, prisoners like the one who died in Frosinone “should not be in prison but in suitable hospital facilities, cared for and certainly not under the watchful eye of the prison police, who are not responsible for this task, but rather other structures and professionals”.
Over 1,400 more inmates
For the unionist “much more needs to be done since the judicial psychiatric hospitals were closed, placing the problem on the agents”. But among the causes of the continuous episodes of tension in the penitentiary facilities of the region above all there is overcrowding. It currently stands at 1,498 inmates for a total of 6,779 people imprisoned in the 14 institutions in Lazio compared to a regulatory capacity of 5,281. «Overcrowding is also recorded in the Roman juvenile circuit with 62 current prisoners – Costantino continues -. It must be remembered, however, that in this sector there are no differentiated circuits and this makes the work very onerous, in the case of inmates with psychopathologies, addiction problems and other pathologies, in narrow spaces. All this raises the level of tension and the few policemen still on duty are forced to work grueling shifts, without turnover or assignment of new units”. In particular, the staff shortage in Lazio is currently 930 agents: 188 in Regina Coeli, 310 even in the various complexes of Rebibbia, and then again 89 in Velletri, 92 in Viterbo, 59 in Rieti, 69 in the two complexes of Civitavecchia, 55 in Cassino, 46 in Frosinone, 12 in Latina, 10 in Paliano. Lazio suffers from a 20% shortage of penitentiary officers at a national level.
