Bologna, 2 July 2024 – Young prisoner escapes from juvenile prison Pratello: from the first reconstructions, it would seem that the prisoner himself (17 years old) climbed over the muro in lovethen moving away into the surrounding streets.
The Penitentiary Police Unions made this known UilPa e Juices. In a note, the general secretary of the UilPa Penitentiary Police, Gennaro DeFaziowrites that the young man, who “will turn 18 in August” and who had been “in pre-trial detention for less than a month, disappeared in the afternoon, while he was out walking in the courtyard”.
At the moment, the trade unionist“it is presumed that he first climbed over the fence of the walkways and then the perimeter wall of the penitentiary, taking advantage of the circumstance that they were not permanently manned due to the chronic shortage of penitentiary police officers”.
The searches started immediately, but so far, De Fazio throws up his hands, “they were unsuccessful.”
Not only: it seems that a real powder keg has exploded inside the juvenile prison in the last few days, with a fire that broke out in the sleeping cells and an attempted attack on the Commander of the Unit.
The trade unionists’ alarm
What happened today brings the manager of the UilPa to underline once again the crisis of the Italian prison systemespecially minors. In his note, De Fazio states that, despite the seriousness of the situation, “the government doesn’t lift a fingerwith the Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio, announcing decrees to speed up who knows what, but proceeding with the speed of a sloth”.
For this reason the trade unionist asks the Prime Minister Georgia Meloni to “take charge of the matter and call an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers to promote structural reforms, decree the deflating of prison density, given that there are 14,500 inmates in excess of available places, and increase the staff of the Penitentiary Police, which is short of 18,000 units”.
“Yet another serious event involving juvenile justice – claims Giovanni Battista Durante, deputy general secretary of the Juices e Francis Campobassonational secretary – a sector that should be the flagship of Italian criminal enforcement, also due to the attention and resources invested in recent years, but which in reality has become increasingly complex and problematic. Despite the efforts made to increase human and material resources, the critical issues continue to increase”.
For the two trade unionists, “perhaps the time has come to review the organization of this Departmentfocusing attention also on safety, which has been neglected up to now, both in adults and in the juvenile sector, where – Durante and Campobasso recall – there are still people up to 25 years old”.
To date in theJuvenile penal institution there are 48 inmates, many of whom arrived from other facilities, often with serious psychiatric problems. The institute’s leaders have always complained about a lack of prison police personnel and a lack of educators.
