Palermo’s public prosecutor against Nordio: “Prisons are no longer under state control.” The minister: “Unprecedented gravity”

“Prisons are no longer under state control. There are conference calls between those on the outside, those inside and those in another prison.” This was stated yesterday by the Public Prosecutor of Palermo, Maurizio De Lucia. “The number of prisoners exceeds capacity; we do not have an adequate support system for those serving sentences; many are drug addicts and should not be in prison. Control of the prisons lies solely with criminal organisations, which want to leave things as they are.” Justice Minister Carlo Nordio reacted immediately: “It is De Lucia who has lost control of himself. It is of unprecedented gravity that a public prosecutor should insult the entire prison police force, which carries out its duties at the risk of its own lives. If some isolated incident has occurred, a magistrate cannot generalise it to the whole country,” concluded the Minister of Justice.