“He set fire to a gas canister by throwing it at an officer, who was injured. It happened last night at the Ucciardone prison in Palermo, involving a prisoner in solitary confinement in disciplinary isolation, locked up in the ninth section.” This was reported by the general secretary of the Uilpa Penitentiary Police Sicily, Gioacchino Veneziano. “It could have ended worse if the staff on duty had not had experience and professionalism,” He says. The man, using a piece of steel, violently hit the armored vehicle with the intention of breaking it, threatening the prison police personnel who intervened. “Then he continued undaunted – says Veneziano -, setting fire to a supplied gas canister to use it as a Molotov cocktail, throwing it at a prison officer, who was then forced to go to the emergency room. A fire started in the cell and the officers had to evacuate the room.”
“We are at war in prisons – adds Veneziano – and politics, together with the administration, must take note of the management failure, because episodes of violence cannot now be managed in prisons. It’s time to think seriously about structures suitable for containing subversive subjects, replenishing the shortage of prison police personnel. In Sicily, as certified by the department, around 800 units are missing.”
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