In overcrowded Italian prisons there are not only suicides.
The death of two sick prisoners in Rome shortly after has caused discussion in the last few hours.
The first, who died on the night between 19 and 20 February, was in a cell in Rebibbia: he was 66 years old, diabetic and with a heart condition.
The second, who died shortly after, was 77 years old and was suffering from pneumonia, as well as having kidney failure: he was hospitalized, coming from Rebibbia where he was imprisoned under the 41 bis regime.
After the episodes, one of the first to denounce "the incompatibility of detention with serious illnesses, which cannot be adequately treated in prison", is the Guarantor for persons deprived of liberty in Lazio, Stefano Anastasia, who has undertaken to hold a meeting with the managers of the local health authority to ascertain the status of the health services within the institute.
And Democratic Party deputy Michela Di Biase, member of the Justice Commission, announces an urgent question to Minister Nordio to "get to the bottom of these two events": "we are now beyond the emergency".
Meanwhile, checks will be launched by the National Guarantor for Prisoners, as has been done and is also happening in other cases.
The Capitoline prosecutor's office has launched an investigation into the death of the 66-year-old, which - reports the Lazio Guarantor himself - "will talk about the timeliness of the rescue and the assistance provided".
It is not excluded that an autopsy could be carried out on the man's body.
However, for the 77-year-old, who had already been hospitalized for over a month, no proceedings would have been initiated.
Precisely in these hours the head of the Dap, Giovanni Russo, speaking in the Justice Commission, addressed a series of issues concerning the critical issues in prisons, starting with suicides: around twenty since the beginning of the year.
"In ten cases it involved prisoners in precautionary custody", said Russo, also speaking on the issue of alternative measures to prison: "it is something that can be influenced" with deflationary effects of the overcrowding of penitentiary institutions where currently - given updated to February 19 - 60,926 prisoners are imprisoned.
The head of the Dap explained that it is necessary to "offer the decision-makers", therefore the magistrates, the possibility of releasing from prison, for example, the approximately nine thousand prisoners who still have a residual sentence of approximately one year to serve, in short, those who are "at the last mile".
In some cases these are individuals who have committed very serious crimes, for which a screening needs to be done.
The idea would be to place those who still have only one year to serve in "communities validated by the Dap" with "very stringent governance methods" in the case of prisoners convicted of serious crimes who must always be accompanied by a 'vigilante' in the case of work outside the community.
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