Two more suicides in Italian prisons, bringing the total number to 15 since the beginning of 2024. The latest two cases occurred in the Carinola prison in Caserta, where a 58-year-old disabled inmate took his own life, and in the Montorio prison in Verona, where a foreign national discharged a few days ago from the psychiatric ward died. The Verona case was publicized by the "Sbarre di zucchero" association: it was the second suicide since the beginning of the year in Montorio. In Caserta, on the other hand, the fact was made known by the Autonomous Union of Penitentiary Police (Sappe). For Sappe Secretary General Donato Capece, "an inmate who takes his own life in prison is a defeat for the state and for all of us who work on the front lines”. According to Tiziana Guacci, Regional Secretary of the union, "suicide is certainly an unpredictable event, the problem is to prevent it," she explained, "the shortage of health workers, psychologists and psychiatrists is the crux of the issue. These suicide cases come at a time when the Ministry of Justice is questioning solutions to overcrowding in Italian prisons. Among the possibilities recently expressed by the Minister of Justice are the conversion of disused barracks and increased use of alternative measures. In the background emerges another case of suicide: a 22-year-old young man, originally from Guinea, found dead in the Ponte Galeria Permanence Center for Repatriation (CPR) in Rome, one of the detention facilities for irregular foreigners. The latter case provoked protests from some CPR guests that were quelled by law enforcement with tear gas.
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