Second Inmate Suicide in 12 Hours Highlights Crisis in Tuscan Jails
Florence: Saturday marked a grim milestone as the second inmate suicide occurred within 12 hours in Tuscan prisons.
According to Ansa News Agency, a total of 11 inmates and one prison officer have taken their own lives in Italian penitentiaries since the beginning of the year.
A 39-year-old Romanian prisoner was found dead after hanging himself in the bathroom of Florence’s Sollicciano Prison on Saturday morning. This tragic event followed the suicide of a North African inmate, who fatally poisoned himself by inhaling camping stove gas in a Prato jail on Friday afternoon.
Gennarino De Fazio, general secretary of the UILPA penitentiary police trade union, stated, “The tragic number of inmates who have committed suicide in Italy since the beginning of the year thus jumps to 11, 2 in Sollicciano, to which one operator must be added.”
The recent incidents have raised serious concerns about the state of mental health care and supervision within the Italian prison system.