Naples: "There was no destruction inside the cells of the Poggioreale prison. The union reports are a bit exaggerated: some damage was reported on the outside, with broken windows, but no physical contact was ever reported between officers and inmates. The protest involved three floors of the Salerno wing—excluding the ground floor—due to the inhumane living conditions at Poggioreale." Samuele Ciambriello, the Campania Prison Ombudsman, explained this to the press at the end of a visit to the prison with the head of the Department of Penitentiary Administration (DAP), Francesco Basentini. Ciambriello wanted to clarify what happened: "The spark that ignited the protest, but it was only the straw that broke the camel's back, stemmed from a health issue. Inmate Luciano De Luca, 28, was taken to the hospital where he was diagnosed with severe gastroenteritis, but the reports that he was in serious health conditions or that the cell assigned to him, number 34, was overcrowded are absolutely false: it's one of the few where there are only two. The understaffing of officers, whose work is commendable, is the real problem: of 4.000 employees in Campania, an average of 800 are out of work each day for various reasons, the main one being psychological and physical exhaustion, meaning those who remain work grueling shifts. This problem also affects other sectors beyond the officers: the healthcare staff, the educators who are in daily contact with the inmates, and in general I notice a job insecurity within the facility that hinders the creation of human relationships." stable. Regarding the news of the transfer of the troublemakers, here too we need clarity: already on Friday, completely unrelated to yesterday's incident, 40 people who had voluntarily requested other facilities were transferred. This is what happened yesterday and today. The visit of the Department of Penitentiary Administration (DAP) led by Chief Basentini is an important signal, but immediate solutions must emerge: restore dignity to the penitentiary system by removing all inhuman and degrading conditions from the wards. I have already reported the existence of €12 million in funding over the past three years, which is available to the Regional Office of Public Works, which, so far, has only conducted site inspections: with that amount of money, everything can be fixed, not just small, low-cost renovations.
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