«The tragic gesture of the 35-year-old prison police officer, originally from the province of Reggio Calabria but resident in Rome, the sixth suicide among prison staff since the beginning of the yeartogether with the 54 inmates who took their own lives, are the clear proof that the State has abandoned staff and inmates to their fate. We can no longer tolerate that the highest political leaders of the Penitentiary Administration are in their places passing off the “prison decree everything as before” as the solution to the prison emergency that has reached levels never recorded before and that makes ours resemble South American prisons”. The Spp union calls for the resignation of Minister Nordio and Undersecretary Delmastrowho, when going around the institutes on the occasion of the new hires that are completely inadequate to deal with the staff shortage, «continues to praise the work of the staff, except to wash his hands of the working conditions that are the same as those of the non-EU workers this summer in the fields».
With the aggravating circumstance that to the 12 hours of work on average, to the renunciation of holidays – says the secretary Aldo Di Giacomo – we must add the 2 thousand agents attacked and forced to undergo medical treatment since the beginning of the year”. In recalling that “suicide is unfortunately widespread not only among prison staff (22 cases in three years) but also among members of all law enforcement agencies, to the point that the number of police officers who die by suicide is more than three times higher than those fatally injured in the exercise of their duties to combat crime”, the union draws attention to the “intense stress to which law enforcement agencies are exposed daily, especially in prisons where in these first six months the staff have suffered 881 attacks with prisons in Campania in first place, followed by those in Lombardy and Lazio”. And it points out that “professional illnesses related to work-related stress are also increasing by 120%”. “Nothing is done about workplace health prevention and psychological support,” Spp denounces, asking for clarity on prison suicides.