Spice – Suicide foiled in La Spezia prison, after the two cases which in 2022 and 2023 unfortunately ended with the death of as many prisoners. In all three cases, these involved people who were at the end of their sentences, with their release from prison now imminent. The Uil reports yet another episode, through its secretary Fabio Pagani, who confirms the state of agitation of the staff, “forced to work in too difficult conditions, in a difficult context”.
The convict saved at the last minute is 56 years old, a La Spezia native of Dominican origin, born in 1967, with the end of his sentence on January 21st. The man attempted to commit suicide by cutting his wrists and throat. He injured his tendons, but didn't have time to complete the incision because he was seen and blocked. The intervention of an officer avoided the drama, but the climate within the prison police force is tense.
“As if we were at war.” The Uil Penitentiary uses harsh words. «2023 – declares the regional secretary Fabio Pagani – ended with 68 suicides among prisoners and 1 among members of the penitentiary police force, as well as 3 murders in prisons: one on 19 June in Velletri, a second on 13 September in Genoa Marassi and a third on 19 December in Viterbo. 2024 opens in the worst possible way, with episodes of riots, suicides and at least dubious deaths.
If the degree of civilization of a country is measured by its prisons, we continue to think not to exaggerate by describing the current penitentiary situation as comparable to theaters of war”. Pagani is calling for “a prison decree that addresses the emergency, deflating the prison density and replenishing the workforce, which is missing by more than 18 thousand units, with accelerated procedures.” He also calls for an overall reform project “of the criminal execution system, with the re-engineering of the penitentiary administration department and the reorganization of the body”.
The most recent precedents from La Spezia. On 13 April 2022, a 24-year-old boy of South American origin died in La Spezia prison after inhaling the gas contained in the camping cylinder used to heat meals. He was confined on the third floor, in the third section. End of sentence expected in 2024.
In November last year 2023, a 53-year-old prisoner from La Spezia took his life in the same prison. He had served a long sentence, over the years, for an old judicial affair, and was now at the end of his rehabilitation process. For him too, the end of his sentence was imminent.
Abstention from the canteen. Already a week ago, on January 10, the La Spezia staff decided to protest in the service canteen due to three attacks against officers in the space of 16 days. The trade union acronyms Sappe, with Andrea Marino, Sinappe, with Giovanni Di Lillo, Osapp, with Vincenzo Piazza, Uil, with Roberto Cilento, Uspp, with Guido Pregnolato, Cisl, with Ciro Campoli, Cgil, with Alessandro Izzo, had forwarded a harsh note of protest, reporting that “the authors of the violent attacks, three different prisoners, continued their prison life without consequences, as if nothing had happened, without being transferred to other locations, as per departmental circulars”.
The sit in on January 18th. A protest will be held outside the La Spezia penitentiary institute on Thursday 18 January. It is a new form of protest, in addition to abstaining from canteen service. Uil anticipates it.
It weighed heavily on the state of agitation among the staff the case of a policeman shot in the head from a beating, on 13 December, by a prisoner, for having “intervened to avoid the worst of another inmate, who had barricaded himself in the room to escape the fury of another”. The prison in La Spezia, the unions had contested, is not equipped “with any room for violent prisoners”, so “those who commit attacks or damage administration property do not serve solitary confinement, but even continue to participate in all recreational and sporting activities”. Hence the decision to proceed with the state of agitation.
#Suicide #foiled #Spezia #prison #Uilpa #protests #It39s #theater #war
