Tension at Naples' Poggioreale Prison: Drunken Inmate Threatens Guards

In the Neapolitan correctional facility of Poggioreale, a drunken inmate, armed with a pair of scissors, threatened to attack the Penitentiary Police personnel who intervened to quell a fight between two inmates. Fortunately, he was immediately subdued. According to the regional secretary of Con.si.pe Campania, Luigi Castaldo, 'the management of aggressive inmates and psychiatric patients seriously questions the safety of the penitentiary officers as well as the order and security in the detention departments. Unfortunately, the resources available are not suitable to face the critical events caused by these types of inmates since they are unpredictable.' Castaldo calls for 'more psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors, and nurses, and facilities exclusively dedicated to treating psychiatric subjects.' 'Especially,' he adds, 'the use of tasers would be desirable to avoid wrestling and the coercive use of force, which often can seem disproportionate. Today, the presence of psychiatric inmates in Campanian prisons is destabilizing the serenity of the other inmates, jeopardizing the safety of everyone.'