Raise your voice Samuele Ciambriello, guarantor of prisoners in Campania, in relation to the boiling August holiday in penitentiary institutions, between record temperatures and overcrowding made more dramatic by the cohabitation with prisoners with drug addictions and psychiatric problems.
“Is it normal to have the second air shift from 13pm to 15pm with this heat? – asks the regional guarantor not without anger – Is it revenge against the inmates? The sentence, if served in this way, has more of the flavor of persecution. In addition to this, in the summer months activities are reduced to the bare minimum, there is no school, the armored vehicles are closed, there is no adequate training. And while suicides are increasing, defibrillators are lacking”.
“Being in prison during this period is a bit like being on an overcrowded bus without air conditioning – Ciambriello explains – We can’t stand the journey, of course, but we know that we’ll be getting off soon anyway.”
The controversy over the suicides of these days, the words of the Nordic minister on prison overcrowding and his proposed law but also the attacks on prison officers are increasingly fueling the fire of controversy.
“Media populism, faced with news stories and more or less brutal crimes- Ciambriello says again– referring to the people in charge on duty: 'let's put them in the cooler', not knowing that no statement is ever more of an oxymoron than that. In prison people die of heat, it is no coincidence that between July and August suicides and acts of violence increase.
Those who have to spend a period behind bars obviously have no prospect of an imminent release and resign themselves to spending hours without air, sticking their nose out into the concrete with prohibitive temperatures.
As a guarantor, I asked the Campania Region to equip the cells in Poggioreale with refrigerators and fans; these are small gestures of inestimable value. Also because it is all a contradiction: they allow relatives to bring cheese and other things from outside and how can they preserve them without refrigerators? They force people to buy food in prison, but at higher prices than what it costs outside”.
Sometimes, even in the midst of a sea of difficulties, it takes very little to improve the living conditions behind bars. I know that mine is a cry against silence, but I trust that sooner or later someone will listen”.
EDITORIAL TEAM
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