Venice, September 17, 2026 – A 33-year-old Romanian inmate, held in the Venice prison and awaiting trial for robbery, escaped this afternoon from the prison yard. The man reportedly climbed over the perimeter wall, managing to disappear without a trace.
The Autonomous Prison Police Union reports that the escape “occurred while bedbug disinfestation operations have been ongoing in the facility for days. To allow the interventions, inmates are moved, one section at a time, inevitably causing complex movements within the prison.”
“What happened in Venice is a very serious matter that cannot be dismissed as a simple news event – denounces Donato Capece, general secretary of Sappe – The security of a prison cannot be entrusted to improvisation and cannot be sidelined by the necessary needs of sanitation and disinfestation interventions. If the movement of inmates becomes a security breach, it means that something in the overall organization has failed.”
Capece emphasizes the need to “immediately verify the dynamics of the escape and the organizational and operational conditions under which the Prison Police personnel were forced to work. Officers must be able to guarantee security and surveillance even during extraordinary interventions involving the movement of entire detention sections. We cannot continue to ask for miracles from the men and women of the Prison Police.”
Giovanni Vona, secretary for the Triveneto region, also comments on the matter: “For days, staff have been managing a particularly complex situation, moving one section at a time to allow bedbug disinfestation. It is clear that extraordinary inmate movements require an adequate security system, because every movement increases criticalities and the chances that someone might take advantage of a breach. Officers cannot be left alone to face such situations. Venice needs resources, personnel, and an organization capable of simultaneously ensuring the necessary hygienic-sanitary conditions and the security of the facility. We ask the Prison Administration to intervene immediately to ascertain what happened and to adopt all necessary measures to prevent similar episodes from recurring.”
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