Riots break out in Rome’s Regina Coeli prison.
ROME – On Wednesday night riots broke out in the Regina Coeli prison, after inmates in the eighth section refused to return to their cells.
In a statement, Gennarino De Fazio, the general secretary of the Uilpa Penitentiary police said that: "The understanding of events so far is that in the evening the inmates flared up and riots began in the eighth section of the Roman prison of Regina Coeli, where about a hundred detainees are imprisoned. Some cans normally used for cooking and preparing food exploded and the interior was vandalized.”
De Fazio went on to explain the impossibility of the police’s task given the overcrowded prison population: “With 1,170 detainees compared to 626 available places – a 184% of surplus prisoners, Regina Coeli is one of the most overcrowded penitentiaries in the country. What’s more there is a shortage of staff with only 350 officers on duty when they would need 709. Suffice it to say that in the evening there are normally less than 20 agents in total.”
The overpopulation in the Regina Coeli prison is representative of a national issue whereby there are 15 thousand prisoners more than the available places. There are also significant issues with dilapidated structures, inadequate endowments, deficiencies in health and psychiatric care. De Fazio has now called for a national solution to the problem: “it cannot always be like this. This is not acceptable for a country that wants to call itself civilized.”
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