ROME, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- A recent jailbreak from Naples' historic Poggioreale prison is likely to result in a revision of the security policies at the 105-year-old facility, analysts said, though it is probably not a signal that the scores of aging prisons in Italy would be phased out.
Robert Lisowski, a Polish man who news reports said was either 31 or 32 years old, this month became the first prisoner to ever escape from the sprawling Poggioreale facility, based in the Naples neighborhood of the same name.
Police reports said Lisowski, who was jailed for murder, used a rope to lower himself down from a seven-meter-tall brick wall at the prison. Italian news reports said Lisowski was able to scale the perimeter wall with the help of fellow prisoners from eastern Europe and Africa as they were leaving a religious service.
The escape did not go well for Lisowski, who injured his leg descending from the wall. He was apprehended a few kilometers away from the prison after being on the lam for less than 48 hours. Lisowski was returned to the facility and is now awaiting a decision on what should happen next.
According to Alessio Scandurra, coordinator of the Observatory on Prison Conditions in Italy, prison breaks are rare in the country and Lisowski's escape is not a sign that widespread reform is needed.
"Prison escapes are unusual in Italy, most years it happens three or four or five times," Scandurra told Xinhua. "I don't think this was any more or less likely to happen in an older facility like Poggioreale. This is not a sign that things need to change in any kind of drastic way."
According to Scandurra, Italy has a high number of old prisons similar to Poggioreale, which was built in 1914.
"There are prisons in Italy that date to the 1600s or the 1700s," he said. "They have some problems, like more limited space, poor ventilation, or a lack of areas for communal activities like professional training programs. But security is not an issue."
Poggioreale, sometimes referred to as "Europe's most crowded prison," has a reputation for harsh conditions and has been the subject of multiple inmate complaints in recent years. News reports said the facility holds some 800 prisoners, more than it was designed to hold.
Lisowski was arrested in December 2018 in connection with the murder of Yuri Busuyok, a 36-year-old Ukrainian bricklayer. Lisowski reportedly stabbed Busuyok multiple times in the chest and neck in a bar fight.
The process leading up to Lisowski's trial began in June, but the actual hearings had not yet taken place when he escaped. In Italy, a murder conviction carries a maximum sentence of 30 years.
According to Alessandra Antenucci, a Rome-based attorney specializing in criminal law, Lisowski's escape could further complicate his prison time in Italy.
"The prison break itself could add up to three years to his sentence, though it'll probably be less," Antenucci said in an interview. "But the biggest impact may be that once everything is confirmed, he could lose certain privileges while in prison, things like the right to leave the prison under some circumstances as a reward for good behavior. In relative terms, it might not add much to his total sentence but it will make the time in prison more difficult to endure."
