Siap meets with the police chief in Catania: “The police force is understaffed”

Last Updated: November 28, 2023

Siap incontra il questore di Catania, polizia sotto organico

The control of the territory and personnel were at the center of a meeting in Catania between a delegation of the Italian police union (Siap) and the police chief Giuseppe Bellassai. The meeting highlighted the “serious difficulties that the Catania police headquarters is facing with men and resources engaged in numerous patrols around the city.” The union estimates that over 80 officers are employed in static surveillance activities at the Courthouse, hospitals, the eight headquarters of the police headquarters, and other targets, equivalent to 40 teams “that could be used for crime prevention and police investigations.” The Siap representatives expressed “appreciation for the recent crime prevention operations and the increase in visible patrols” but also “concerns about the situation of the local police stations, which are under-staffed and cannot provide a dynamic service in the neighborhoods,” hoping for “a change in direction in the fight against crime and prevention with a significant strengthening of the personnel in the local police stations to ensure efficient and visible community policing.” The Siap assured their “support to the police chief,” but remains “concerned due to the lack of reinforcements that forces the current officers to make huge individual sacrifices.” The union also believes that the general prevention and public assistance office, along with the complaint office, “must be strengthened and made more dynamic in the territory, setting an appropriate number of goals and teams for the city.” Regarding the new police headquarters, it would be necessary to “find other structures.” “The only possible solution – emphasizes the Siap – is a requalification of the former abandoned hospital premises and their simultaneous assignment to the Catania police headquarters, which could become its new, and only, headquarters.”