Disturbances in Turin prison, 6 agents injured. In the government's plan hypothesis of domicile on short residual sentences

Mid-August of tension and unrest in the Turin prison. A long day of protests by inmates resulted in the injury - not serious - of six prison police officers; two others were intoxicated by smoke from the fires. Calm only returned in the early hours of 16 August, but it was necessary to recall the staff not on duty and also to receive the help of units brought in from other penal institutions in Piedmont.

That the situation is difficult inside the 'Lorusso and Cotugno' prison, where there are 1,500 inmates against a capacity of 1,100, where there is a shortage of about 200 agents and where the unions have been denouncing the poor sanitary conditions for some time, is nothing new. On 13 August, a delegation of lawyers and politicians (including Anna Rossomando, vice-president of the Senate) had only been able to visit part of the facility due to the concomitance of a riot between inmates in one sector and a suicide attempt in another. On 15 August, the fuse of tension was lit in two places. In pavilion B, about ten inmates started a fight and then refused to return to their cells; one even set fire to a mattress. In area C something worse happened. An inmate asking to be transferred grabbed a pair of scissors and threatened those present. His comrades backed him up and the protest soon spread to all three floors of the pavilion: damage to the video surveillance system, neon lights and furniture, mattresses on fire, oil thrown on the floor to obstruct the officers' intervention.

A 25-year-old Moroccan man, among those evacuated to the courtyard because of smoke that had invaded the sections, took advantage of the confusion to climb over a low wall and get close to the fences before being blocked. The six officers were discharged with prognoses ranging from seven to 15 days. "What happened is madness" thunders Leo Beneduci, secretary general of the prison police union Osapp, who on the one hand emphasises that "in the most problematic prison in Italy, the command functions of the department are entrusted to an inspector who, although good, does not have the right experience", and on the other hand, considering the "situation of anarchy", asks the prefect to call in the army. Donato Capece, number one of the Sappe, observes that "it is disconcerting to see the flames in the Turin prison again", recalling the fire in the women's section that killed eleven inmates and two correctional officers in 1989.

And two prison police officers on duty in Biella were injured while trying to settle an argument between inmates. One of them was hit with a stool, the colleague was punched in the face and shoulder. Vicente Santilli, the union's regional secretary, emphasises that 'when the situation was calmed down, the two officers were taken to the local hospital for treatment'. "As we have repeatedly denounced," declared Donato Capece, secretary general of the prison police union Sappe, "these are events that destabilise order, security and the serenity of the staff working at the Biella Prison". Capece hopes that "the penitentiary administration will urgently adopt the appropriate measures" and renews the request to "equip the Corps' staff with tasers and any other useful tool to defend themselves from the violence of delinquents who have no respect for the rules and people who represent the State".

Alternative measures to prison, including house arrest or probation, for those inmates convicted of non-hostile offences, who have to serve residual sentences within a year. This is one of the hypotheses - according to sources close to the prison dossier - being considered by the Ministry of Justice. The proposal, which emerged as early as 7 August during the minister's meeting with the Prisoners' Guarantor and the regional guarantors themselves, would aim to combat the phenomenon of prison overcrowding, with a reduction of thousands of places in Italian prisons.