Ciambriello in Secondigliano: “Keep the mentally ill out”

The Campania guarantor of prisoners Samuele Donut continues his visits to the prisons of Campania during the week of Ferragosto. Today he was in the prison of Secondigliano where he met, among others, the 18 inmates of the psychiatric unit. In Campania, in addition to Secondigliano, there are psychiatric units also in the prisons of Santa Maria Capua Vetere, Benevento, Salerno, Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi and Pozzuoli.

And then there are two Rems (residences for the execution of security measures) in Calvi Risorta and San Nicola Baronia that house a total of 40 inmates. Upon leaving the prison, the regional guarantor Ciambriello said. "In our prisons there are hundreds of inmates with mental suffering, we should ask ourselves: why do they enter prison and external structures do not take charge of those suffering from mental illness, why are there few professionals, few spaces, few recovery projects in prisons and finally why do magistrates not use alternative measures to detention for these otherwise free people.

The right to health, the only one to which the Constitution (art.32) reserves the adjective fundamental, has always given rise to a long-standing and tormented theoretical dispute. Since 2008 it has tended to be outdated since health care in prisons is managed by the National Health Service. For every short-sightedness there are appropriate lenses and for every darkness there are suitable lights.

Torre Annunziata, she was a pusher with her newborn son in her arms: dozens of arrests 6 March 2025 - 06:34

It is useless to continue to trumpet the success of the closure of criminal asylums, a goal that, moreover, should have been achieved already in the Sixties, by reason of important jurisprudential pronouncements of legitimacy and merit, if we are not able to untie hitherto inextricable knots: taking charge of mentally ill people in apartment groups, home care, strengthening of mental health services, all in the prevention phase.

And then the creation of a new Rems in Campania, as unanimously decided by the regional council on May 3, strengthening the figures of psychologists, psychiatrists, rehabilitation technicians in prison, alternative measures to prison for those suffering from mental illness. The problem remains that of offering adequate psychiatric assistance to prisoners and of guaranteeing mental health departments the right economic and human resources to treat those under probation”.