Prison Rebibbia without heating: radiators turned off, overcrowding and critical conditions as snow falls across Italy. Here he is the painting was criticized by Gianni Alemannodetained in Rebibbia, who in the ‘Diary of cell 33’ published on social media, in accordance with the regulations, tells of the dramatic situation experienced by both prisoners and correctional officers.
”We have reached November 23 and the radiators are completely turned off, while snow is falling all over Italy and temperatures are also dropping in Rome. The prison radio tells us that the boiler is broken and that even the Penitentiary officers are in the same condition as we are: not only here, but also in their barracks, adjacent to Rebibbia”, writes Alemanno, while denouncing that hot water does not come after 8 p.m., even in the bathrooms of the people who came on the last shift just in case.
Alemanno described the agents as “wrapped up like Napoleon’s soldiers in Russia”, forced to work in the cold. In the post he also criticized Minister Nordio, noting that population density continues to worsen: “Summer is over, autumn is over, we don’t see a single place anymore and population density is increasing inexorably”. Meanwhile, he underlined, “the roof of the Regina Coeli had collapsed, the Rebibbia had collapsed” and the agents found themselves “in small groups, surrounded by hundreds of prisoners. In this they were more reminiscent of the 7th Cavalry on the Little Big Horn (the uniforms were the same color)”.
The former mayor of Rome later spoke about the transformation of social rooms into makeshift cells: “Since the construction of Rebibbia, each department has had a room dedicated to socializing, with an ugly ping pong table and some unexpected chess boards. Not knowing anymore where to put the newcomers, having run out of all the space in the cells, the room (in the future there will be others too) has been converted into a large cell. Six cots are arranged randomly, mattresses arrive after days, there are no lockers, no TV, everything is piled up on the central table. During a week, he said, “the bathroom didn’t even have a flush and the people who were detained were given buckets of water to clean.”
Alemanno worries that the situation will not improve: “Sooner or later the boiler will be repaired and the frozen walls of Rebibbia will start to warm up a little (nothing special, but better than nothing), but the overcrowding will continue to grow.” And, in a polemical tone, he concludes: “It may soon be said that overcrowding also helps against the cold, because by piling ourselves on top of each other, we warm each other.”
