Rioting in Regina Coeli prison due to suicide attempt, prison police at 'breaking point'

 ROME - Riots broke out Sunday night in Rome's Regina Coeli prison, where on August 15 a 19-year-old Egyptian prisoner, who had been admitted to Section VII just the day before, attempted suicide, as reported by Il Fatto Quotidiano. The protests only subsided at dawn.

 “The riot in Rome's Regina Coeli prison comes after the attempted suicide of an inmate who had just entered the same institution on 15 August, and after two successful suicides in Benevento and Civitavecchia. Fifty-five prisoners in Italy have taken their own lives this year. Another 30 deaths are still to be investigated and deserve even more attention,” said Aldo Di Giacomo, secretary general of the SPP union.

 “The numbers are skyrocketing,” he continued, “and the situation is the worst it has been in 20 years. Action is needed now, without delay, to prevent the prison system from collapsing. The Prison Police has never been so neglected, and reinforcements cannot wait any longer.”

 According to reports, some inmates in the sixth section (142 in total) delayed returning to their cells, and then others in the third section (which contains 217 inmates) threw camping gas canisters they had in their possession at the prison police officers on duty and started fires.

 The situation was somehow brought under control, “not without enormous difficulty, at around 5 a.m., thanks to the intervention of the acting commander of the department and other officers called in from their rest period to reinforce the few who were present. Once again, the officers, with competence, professionalism and sacrifice, and at their own risk, managed to patch things up, but we fear that in the absence of decisive action, this will not always be the case,” said Gennarino De Fazio, Secretary General of the UILPA Prison Police.

 “Regina Coeli has 1116 inmates crammed into a facility with only 572 places available, resulting in overcrowding of nearly 200%, while there are only 350 officers assigned to the facility, when at least twice that number would be necessary,” announces the union representative. “Just think that last night there were a total of ten officers on duty, who are subjected to real state exploitation, with shifts lasting up to 26 hours without a break. And if the Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio, in an interview published today in a Roman daily newspaper, goes so far as to say that ‘overcrowding leads to exasperation and therefore to violent revolt’, we must acknowledge that for once he has been prophetic. For once, he should promote concrete and immediate measures to reduce prison density, to strengthen the prison police force, which is now at breaking point throughout the country, starting by stopping the exodus of officers to ministerial offices and non-prison locations, and to initiate comprehensive reforms.”

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