Figueres prison director resigns after three suicides in four months

BarcelonaThe director of the Puig de les Basses prison, Jordi Oliveras, has resigned from his post following the suicide of three inmates at the penitentiary center since the beginning of the year. The last one was this Monday, when a prisoner who was in isolation took his own life. The Department of Justice and Democratic Quality reported this Friday that in the coming days there will be "a change" at the head of the Figueres prison and a new director will be appointed. According to the department, the director until now has placed his position at the disposal of the Secretariat of Penal Measures and Reintegration and its head, Elena Pérez, has accepted the resignation.

Prison sources indicate that the reason for the resignation is the fact that the Puig de les Basses penitentiary center has accumulated three suicides since the beginning of the year. Since January 1, five prisoners have committed suicide in Catalan prisons, a figure that is very close to the total sum of last year. Throughout 2025 there were six suicides, according to the count of human rights organizations. "Now, in four months we have had five. I don't even want to think about the fact that this statistic could be maintained," says the director of the Observatory of the Penal System and Human Rights at the University of Barcelona, Iñaki Rivera. Rivera also criticizes "the absolute opacity" surrounding these deaths in prison. "We don't know the names of the people, nor what their lives were like, if they had family, if they received visits... We also don't know the circumstances of the death," criticizes Rivera.

Regarding the latest death at Puig de les Basses, the Department of Justice reported that it was a 28-year-old prisoner who was in the special closed regime department (DERT) of the prison, that is, in isolation. He was serving a three-year sentence for a crime of attacking authority and would have been released definitively in January 2028. As explained by Justice, at that time the inmate did not have the suicide prevention protocol activated because no indicators that justified it had been detected.

Two suicides in isolation

Prison sources consulted by ARA warn that the three deaths have coincided with a shortage of psychologists at the center: out of a dozen professionals, there are two vacancies unfilled and two people who have been on leave for months and have not been replaced. Other prison sources add that, of the other two suicides this year at Puig de les Basses, another was already in the DERT, like this week's, and the third, in the intake module. The prisoner who committed suicide in the intake module was the owner of a bar in Port de la Selva and took his own life on his first night at the center. He had just entered preventive detention for fraud.

The same sources add that the second suicide this year at the center was in the DERT. He was a young man who was in isolation serving a sanction and had a long history in mental health units.