The Government and the prison officials do not approach positions despite the 24-hour truce this Tuesday in which the centers recovered normality while waiting for new protest actions to be called for the death of the Mas d’ cook. Enric murdered by an inmate.
The officials once again stood up to the Department of Justice in the meeting to which they were called early in the morning and insist that contacts will not begin until responsibilities are assumed and the Secretary of Penal Measures, Amand Calderó, resigns. The Government spokesperson, Patrícia Plaja, insisted on Tuesday on the “risk” that new protests could cause at the doors of penitentiary centers and reiterated that they could “put workers and inmates in danger and risk and violate the rights of inmates.”
The officials have called a demonstration for this Wednesday in Plaza Sant Jaume with the intention of being received by President Pere Aragonès. At the end of the rally they will decide in an assembly whether to continue with the protests. Meanwhile, a week has passed since the murder of the cook at the Tarragona prison without the Government having clarified what happened and whether any control mechanism failed that allowed a man convicted of killing a woman with a knife to be assigned to the kitchen. kitchen.
This Tuesday, a group of prison officials wanted to distance themselves from the unions and explained the situations they face every day in prisons in a press conference at the Col·legi de Periodistes de Catalunya. They stated that they continually suffer attacks and feel unprotected. For this reason, they encouraged them to continue with the protests until the Department of Justice listens to them. Among the claims are requests for an increase in staff, more material resources, specialized departments, such as psychiatry modules, and greater training for workers.
Raquel, a Quatre Camins worker, reported that she is alone in a module with fifty prisoners and without support officials, tools or authority. Another Mas d’Enric worker explained that they run productive workshops with a single employee and a hundred inmates with access to tools such as scissors, pliers or screwdrivers, which can become “weapons” to attack them. Another prison official recounted the difficulties of treating mentally ill inmates. “You have to imagine a brutal Molotov cocktail in which different typologies are mixed and we find ourselves there alone or practically alone to mediate with all the conflict it can generate.”
With the parties castled, the Ombudsman of Greuges, Esther Giménez-Salinas, has offered herself as a mediator in the conflict and, in parallel, has opened an ex officio action to find out the extent of the impact on the fundamental rights of the prisoners by the protests from officials. Last week she also began two investigations to clarify whether the perpetrator of the crime was “in the most appropriate destination in Mas d’ Enric” and another into the attacks suffered by Quatre Camins workers.
The dean of the Il·lustre Col·legi de l’Advocacia, Jesús Sánchez, offered himself as a mediator in the conflict and called for opening a channel of dialogue between the Department of Justice and prison officials. “Casling is the worst thing that can happen when the parties have a conflict,” he said.
