Another tragedy behind bars. On the night between Saturday, October 19th and Sunday, October 20th, Joseph Luki, a Nigerian citizen in his forties, was found dead in his cell in the Ariano Irpino prison, in the province of Avellino. According to initial reports, the man took his own life.
Attempts to rescue him by prison staff were unsuccessful. Luki leaves behind a wife and two young children.
The Benevento Public Prosecutor's Office, informed of the incident, ordered an autopsy to determine the cause of death. The body was transferred to the San Pio Hospital in Benevento, where a forensic examination will be performed in the coming days.
With the Ariano Irpino case, the number of suicides recorded in Italian prisons this year has risen to sixty-eight: a dramatic figure that confirms a steadily growing trend, with six victims already recorded in Campania alone. Since the beginning of 2025, two inmates have taken their own lives in Poggioreale prison, two in Secondigliano, one in Benevento, and one in Santa Maria Capua Vetere.
«The emergency, the suicide epidemic, does not seem to be stopping.
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Ciambriello echoed the words of President Sergio Mattarella, who has repeatedly called for respect for the dignity of every person, including those in prison: "The high suicide rate is evidence of unacceptable conditions, including overcrowding and staff shortages. It is a reality we can no longer ignore."
According to the ombudsman, the reasons that drive many inmates to take such extreme measures are varied—isolation, psychological distress, lack of prospects, family abandonment—but the result is the same: "People continue to die in prisons."
To these numbers, Ciambriello denounces, we must also add the 36 deaths from causes yet to be ascertained that have occurred since the beginning of the year: "An interminable torture that questions our consciences."
Finally, an appeal to politicians: "We need structural intervention in the penitentiary system. Announcements about building new prisons or increasing the number of available places are not enough. We need to strengthen the educational staff, psychologists, and language mediators, and, above all, expand alternative measures to detention. Only in this way can we break this cycle of death and restore dignity to a system that is currently collapsing."
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