Thirteen guards at a juvenile detention center were arrested by order of a prosecutor yesterday Monday in Italy, as they are accused of committing a series of attacks on juvenile detainees and of torturing many in Milan (north); eight other colleagues were suspended.

The arrests at the Cesare Beccaria juvenile prison, in the region of the Lombard capital, were made as part of an investigation into attacks committed between 2022 and this year, Italian police explained in a press release.

The defendants are alleged to have engaged in “torture,” “abuse of power,” “complicity in attacks against minors” and, in one case, “attempted sexual violence” — raping a prisoner.

Investigating officers were able to identify the alleged perpetrators thanks to wiretapping, closed-circuit surveillance footage of the detention center, as well as testimony from former inmates, according to the press release.

Italian prisons face chronic problems, notably overcrowding and insufficient funding. In January, they held 60,300 people, while their nominal capacity does not exceed 47,300 places, according to a body that oversees the prison system.

The detention center where twelve of the thirteen detainees worked has about 50 guards and has been without a director for 20 years.

A prison staff union expressed “horror” at the accusations. “We know that prison officials throughout Italy work with professionalism and humanity”, however “we trust the Italian judiciary to shed light on the case as soon as possible”, said the union SAPPE.

This is a “painful” case, a “black page” in the history of the Italian prison system, commented the head of the Milan prosecutor’s office, Marcello Viola, during a press conference.

According to the prosecutor’s office, the officers handcuffed the victims so that they could not resist and beat them in such a way that they did not leave marks.

“They believed that their actions were justified and didactic” to deal with “misbehavior of inmates”, but in any case they used “illegal violence”, emphasized the prosecutor Leticia Manela for her part.

Although — comparatively — small, the juvenile detention population in Italy has been growing rapidly in recent years. According to Antigone, a prisoner rights organization, at the end of February 532 minors were incarcerated in 17 detention centers, up from 381 in 2022.