Violence in prison, the denunciation of an inmate in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto. The prison police: “We victims”

by time news

After the episodes of violence against prisoners a Santa Maria Capua Vetere, the focus shifts to the prison of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, in the province of Messina. Not just any prison, but an ex Judicial psychiatric hospital which still maintains a department of mental health and on which a few days ago the guarantor of the prisoners of Caserta, Emanuela Belcuore: “The institutions and the judiciary intervene to shed light on what is happening in the prison of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto“. A complaint came from an inmate of the Sicilian prison for mistreatment submitted to the surveillance magistrate.

An episode that took place last November, formally denounced only a few weeks ago which therefore confirms the alarm raised by Belcuore during the press conference of the guarantors held following the violence in Santa Maria Capua Vetere. An inmate with serious breathing problems and another on hunger strike. These are the reports made by Belcuore, after the reports submitted to the guarantor of the Sicilian prisoners, Giovanni Fiandaca. However, after the verifications, these reports have not been confirmed: “There is no one in hunger strike, while the inmate with respiratory problems was transported to the hospital Papardo of Messina for investigations and the situation does not appear critical ”, Fiandaca reports. While the director of the prison, Romina tajani confirms: “I do not think there are cases of this kind, I feel absolutely serene, at least under my direction I do not know that anything has happened that confirms the alarm”.

The accusations of the Caserta guarantor would therefore not be well founded. Yet the last attempt to escape from prison is only two days ago, when one of the inmates attempted to climb over the wall and fell, fracturing his foot. The news was given by Salvatore Chillemi, national delegate of the Osapp prison police union, who points the finger at the chronic shortage of staff: “It is clear that if the staff is not replenished quickly, such criticalities can only increase. In fact, in addition to the Penitentiary Police it is necessary that for all psychiatric subjects an increase in health personnel is expected as is the case in Rems “. And this is certainly one of the sore points of the Barcelona prison.

Not just any prison but an ex Judicial psychiatric hospital, which, after the closure of the Opgs (the law dates back to 2015), now houses simple prisoners and prisoners for whom, following their detention, psychiatric criticalities (therefore not inmates judged incapable of understanding and willing but socially dangerous as it was in the Opg): there are 56 men and 8 women in the mental health department, as reported by the manager of the ASP of Messina, Carmelo Crisicelli. Of these two are subjects who should not be in prison but because of the overcrowding in the Rems (residences for the execution of security measures, which replaced the Opg) are temporarily detained in the Messina prison. Until a few days ago there were four, but two have been transferred to Rems di Nose, a small town on the Nebrodi, competent for western Sicily by the former Opg, now closed by law and converted into a simple prison.

In the reconversion, however, something still does not work completely, so much so that the Constitutional Court on 24 June ordered an investigation into the difficulties in applying the security measures, prompted by a case in Lazio measure not applied precisely because there was no place in the Rems. And not surprisingly it is the mental health department the one to give more problems to the Barcelona prison. Osapp had already reported an episode of violence by a detainee against an agent last February, while in February 2020 another prison police union, the Sappe, spoke of “war bulletin“Reporting” the impossibility of managing the section Mental health articulation “. And the alarm from the guarantor from Caserta is now raised by his father Joseph Insana, for years a volunteer in the prison, while in his shelter in Barcelona he had hosted thousands of inmates of the former Opg over the years. Volunteer activity continued even after but interrupted by Covid: “Now it is a closed, tight place – says Father Insana -. Every prisoner must serve his sentence, but whoever has an illness has the right to be treated adequately and in the mental health joint of the prison of Barcelona this right is denied ”. And he explains: “In addition to psychotropic drugs other socialization and rehabilitation interventions are needed. All these aspects are lacking, with the result that in the absence of adequate health treatment there have been episodes of self-harm, suicide attempts, suicides and assaults, it would take the joint interventions of public health, interventions by the ASP and the direction of the prison but they do not happen and the episodes follow one another “.

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