Inmate suicide in Novara: 44 deaths in six months in Italian prisons

Another suicide in Italian prisons, the 44th since the beginning of the year. It happened yesterday around 11.30 am in the Novara prison. The prison police union Osapp reported this, explaining that the officers found the prisoner, just twenty years old, dead hanged with a rudimentary noose in his cell. The alarm went off immediately, but for the young man, originally from Algeria, there was nothing left to do.

“It is the 44th suicide in prison in less than six months. It is a tragic and significant fact – notes the general secretary of Osapp Leo Beneduci – an unacceptable factand, how unacceptable is the situation that inmates and prison officers are experiencing in Italian prisons. The Government must finally take note of the profound inability of the current administration leaders to manage this type of emergency. And take note that special and extraordinary measures are needed to ensure that prisons return to being what the Constitution says: that is, safeguards of legality and safety”. According to Beneduci, “the prison administration cannot be managed by someone who until yesterday was a magistrate. It cannot be managed through the benefits given to magistrates at the end of their careers. For the prison administration, managers capable of organizing are needed. And so far the magistrates at the end of their careers have shown that they are not able to manage the situation”