Outbreak of Covid 19 in the Chieti prison, Voices from inside asks for alternative measures to avoid infections

Worrying situation in the Theatine prison of Madonna del Freddo, where at least 10 inmates tested positive for Coronavirus. This was reported by the association Voices from within, which received the news from some relatives.

“There is a lot of concern: the Chieti prison – denounces the association – is old and dilapidated, there are cells for even six people, some still have Turkish women. Promiscuity, the impossibility of keeping their distance are in danger of sending the whole institute of Madonna del Freddo is in a tailspin where about a hundred people are locked up, many of them sick. No news on the state of health of the staff, agents, employees, management staff. A worrying situation: there are no cells for the quarantine, there are no rooms where to put people who tested positive. One of the hypotheses being defined is the displacement of all the positives in the female section. At the moment the management of the prison has suspended all the activities of the volunteers (very few to say the true) that until Saturday they were held only via Skype “.

For Voices of the inside, the risk of outbreaks could be remedied with a different organization. “In the prison of Chieti, but it happens in many prisons in Italy, people with a sentence of a few months or people who have to serve in prison for crimes committed even ten years ago continue to be taken to their cells. One among many is the case of a prisoner who he was taken to prison in Chieti for a sentence of a few months, he was quarantined, then he was put out. Is all this normal? For us the answer is no. And the consequences are now evident: overcrowding, little security , and now also the contagion of a dozen people who could end up in hospital and clog the health system even more with full hospitals “.

Voices from the inside asks for alternative solutions, such as probation, public utility work and house arrest for all people with sentences under three years, as well as all those over 70, the sick, women (a few thousand inside for often minor offenses), people with serious addictions, children.