Panic in Poggioreale, prisoner sets fire to cell

A non-EU prisoner set fire, with a cigarette, to the cell where he was being held in the Avellino section of the prison PoggiorealeIt happened yesterday: the general secretary of the autonomous Penitentiary Police Union (Sappe), Donato Capece, reported it today.

“The flames and smoke – he says – spread throughout the Section. Once again, only thanks to the immediate intervention of the penitentiary police personnel were it possible to secure 14 inmates, despite the flames and smoke having made rescue operations difficult.

All this happened with a greatly reduced number of agents due to the well-known lack of personnel, in a prison that has exceeded 2.200 inmates”. “The situation is serious in Campania: it is time to say enough. The women and men of the Penitentiary Police who carry out their service in Poggioreale on a daily basis do so with professionalism, zeal, self-denial and above all humanity in a very complicated context due to exasperating overcrowding. But urgent measures are needed to curb an operational situation that is simply alarming”, concludes Capece.