Milan, 5 August (Adnkronos) – The riots in the Beccaria juvenile prison, the devastation behind bars in Turin, the tensions linked to overcrowding that do not spare any detention facility. In recent years the number of protests and attacks on prison police has exploded. This is one of the elements that emerged in the latest hearing in the Senate of the national guarantor of the rights of persons deprived of personal liberty. From 2016 to 2023 the number of critical events has “drastically increased” as stated in the report: from 63,897 in 2016 to 153,145 in 2023 and 2024 risks being a tragic record year.
In particular, assaults, self-harming gestures, and collective and individual protests have recorded a “sharp increase”: in 2016 there were 26,329 in total, while in 2023 there were 36,729. The latest survey, as of July 31, 2024, shows an alarming picture with data that, in some cases, in just a few months exceed the statistics for the whole of 2023. In the first 7 months of this year, 163 refusals to return to their cells were reported by inmates (compared to 98 episodes in 2023), 12,680 failures to comply with obligations, 1,058 intimidations or oppression of classmates (compared to 936). Among the collective protests, 14 hunger or thirst strikes stand out (10 last year), as many as 4,567 individual initiatives on this front, in addition there were nine abstentions from work or recreational activities, 388 ‘noisy’ protests in cells (objects were hit against the bars) compared to 281 episodes in 2023. According to the Guarantor’s data, suicides at 58 have already exceeded those of the whole of 2023 (40), as have attempts to take one’s own life: 1,211 compared to 1,118 last year.
And in addition to the data of those who refuse treatment in protest, attacks on staff are also growing: 1,194 Penitentiary Police officers were attacked in the first seven months of the year (978 in the whole of 2023), while 56 were attacked against administrative staff (37 last year). “It is conceivable – the analysis reads – that the increase in overcrowding could be associated with an increase in the same, in particular of those critical events that, more than others, are an expression of detention distress, such as acts of aggression, self-harm, suicides, suicide attempts, homicide, physical attacks on penitentiary police staff and administrative staff”. Today there are 61,140 inmates in a total of 46,982 places available, with an overcrowding rate of 130.06% at a national level and with San Vittore which, due to some closed departments, holds the sad record among the 190 institutions in Italy with an overcrowding rate of 231.15%.
