Several critical episodes have occurred in the last week in the Spoleto prison, where – explains Fabrizio Bonino, Umbrian secretary of the autonomous penitentiary police union – the officers found themselves «having to face important critical events due to fires set by prisoners on the furnishings of the cells and there was even a near tragedy when a non-EU prisoner, in an attempt to obtain a higher dose of psychotropic drugs than the one prescribed for him, set fire to the mattress in his cell”.
The trade unionist addresses – in a note – «Sappe’s applause to all the personnel involved who, with professionalism, a spirit of self-sacrifice and despite the small number of contingents available and the scarcity of means, managed to put out the fire, put rescued the prisoner and temporarily evacuated the sections invaded by toxic fumes but during the operations the worst was reported by a penitentiary police inspector, who had to resort to emergency room treatment and a chief assistant due to inhaling the combustion fumes ».
Bonino, reiterating «the seriousness of the Umbrian penitentiary situation», defines «the indifference of the central and peripheral administration as disconcerting, totally insensitive to the countless reports of the union, which, on several occasions, has highlighted the very serious condition of overcrowding affecting the sections of medium security and the age-old issue of staff shortages which has now reached almost 40%. Shortage that should have been mitigated with the arrival of 38 units expected with the 2024 mobility but to date of the 38 only two units have arrived to support the Spoleto department which continues to be harassed on a daily basis with the denial of thousands of overdue vacation days of previous years, with exhausting hours and shifts and thousands of hours of overtime carried out even beyond the limit allowed by the regulations and often not even paid”.
Full support for the protest of the Spoleto penitentiary police also from Donato Capece, general secretary of Sappe: «As general secretariat of Sappe – he announces – we will take action at the penitentiary administration department to ensure that the just protests of colleagues from Spoleto and from the entire region receives attention and consequent measures.”
