Prisons are still a mirror of our society. A minuscule space for coexistence in which prisoners and convicts must adapt to their new reality behind bars, banned from freedom, and under the tutelage of some prison officers who are the guarantors that discipline is complied with and that there is security. This week, the union representatives of the Catalan prisons joined the protest called by the Marea Azul association and staged a protest, with confinement in the office of the director of Brians 2, to denounce the unstoppable increase in attacks against some internal ones that are increasingly violent.
Some time ago, an official lost 20% of the vision in one eye, another lost a phalanx due to a bite, another was hit and when he fell he injured his head and has cognitive problems… and so, one day after another, the reports of the administrations and those of the unions reflect a serious increase in the conflict of civil servants. Last year, officials suffered 377 attacks, more than one per day; and 40% more than the previous year. Since 2016 the attacks have practically multiplied by four. Higher figures when it comes to accounting for aggressions among the inmates themselves.
After the mobilizations, the CSIF, ACAIP, Intersindical, UGT and CC.OO unions signed an agreement that their leaders described as “historic” and that proposes resizing the staff of officials and workers and starting, within two months, a test in Brians 2 on the use of defense gas. After the signing, the department assured that it was “committed to the safety of workers” and explained that the measures would serve to “reduce incidents” in prisons. An agreement that unions and administration agreed upon will surely pave the way to reduce a conflict that is worrying.
But there is a significant part of the staff that does not share the optimism of the signatories of the agreement. In fact, the discontent has been growing and they are spontaneously collecting signatures. There are not a few workers who reject the agreement warning that a phenomenon that is not reproduced in the rest of Spanish prisons must be analyzed.
“The answer is easy. Attacking an official in Catalonia is free”, explains a worker. From the Marea Azul association it is insisted that in recent years an “avalanche” of circulars, instructions and service orders “have emptied of real content” the law that governs officials and the Catalan regulations of the centers, turning the exercise professional impossible.
Marea Azul dismantles one by one the points of the union agreement with Justícia. They do not understand how drones flying over the centers will help prevent attacks on officials. The agreement includes carrying out pilot tests for the use of one-person cameras and for the use of aerosols. This point of the negotiation was one of the most celebrated by the unions, to the indignation of many officials who remember how its use is already provided for in the organic penitentiary law of 1979 and that, therefore, it is not understood that they have to continue doing so. tests instead of implementing it not only in Brians 2 but in all the centers.
Regarding the increase in the workforce of 350 positions between 2024 and 2025, the officials recall that these are positions that will include jurists, criminologists, psychologists, educators, social workers and educators, and specialists. In other words, 25 places for each of the 14 prisons in Catalonia, which makes the increase practically irrelevant, especially when it is estimated that a thousand prison officers will have to retire in less than seven years.
