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CRIME

Italy announces crackdown on ‘out of control’ youth violence

Italy's government is clamping down on juvenile crime after a recent spate of gang violence, but critics warn that harsher punishments alone will not stamp out delinquency.

Italy announces crackdown on 'out of control' youth violence
Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the state intends to "act and show our face" in response to gang violence involving minors. (Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP)

Italy’s government on Thursday approved new laws intended to prevent juvenile violence, including by making it easier for police to arrest children carrying weapons, and introducing prison terms for the parents of children who drop out of school

Under the new decree, parents of children who skip lessons could face up to two years in jail.

The measures were part of a new package approved by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s cabinet in response to a string of violent crimes involving teenagers in the outskirts of Italy’s poorer cities.

Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party whose tough-on-crime stance appeals to many voters,said at a press conference that “Juvenile crime is spreading like an oil stain.”

Italian media has been filled this summer with reports of violent incidents involving what newspapers call “baby gangs” – young teens and children recruited, often by mafia, for drug dealing, thefts and other crimes.

“The situation has gotten out of control and something must be done,” Meloni said during a press conference Thursday.

Last week, she visited Caivano, a tough northeastern suburb of Naples overrun by the Camorra mafia where it emerged in August that two female cousins, aged 10 and 11, had been raped by other youths.

In Sicily in July, a 19-year-old woman was raped in Palermo by a group of seven young men, the attack filmed on video.

During a visit conducted under tight security, Meloni insisted she would not accept “no-go” zones – areas controlled by organised crime groups – and promised that Caivano would be “radically reclaimed”.

“We came here to say that we intend to act and show our face,” she said, saying the Italian state had previously been either absent or “not sufficiently felt”.

Marginalisation

Police launched a blitz on Caivano earlier this week and Meloni promised more money to rebuild the neighbourhood’s derelict sports centre and provide more teachers for Caivano’s schools.

She said on Thursday that the national measures agreed in the decree law were “repressive, but preventative”.

The decree increases the number of offences for which children as young as 14 can be convicted, and allows police to arrest those 14 and up carrying weapons.

Judges can also ban minors aged 14 and up from legally owning cellphones, under certain circumstances.

Parents, meanwhile, can be sentenced to two years in jail for failing to enrol their children in school despite an official warning by police, and one year if the child has a high truancy rate.

Currently, the parents of truants can be fined 30 euros.

Critics said Meloni’s measures were only part of the solution, saying young people across the country needed better schooling and improved social programmes.

The parliamentary deputy head of the opposition Five Star Movement, Vittoria Baldino, said the new decree was a strategy to “conquer only headlines on tomorrow’s paper but doesn’t revolve the problem of societal marginalisation”.

In an interview on Friday with the daily newspaper Il Giornale, top Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi said “concrete interventions” were needed to address youth delinquency, taking into account “failures, delays, and omissions that foster the growth of youth discomfort”.

Member comments

  1. Having strict laws to impose on the parents is a good start. The italian children need to see there is a great future and opportunities for them outside the world of crime. There should be technical schools and pays scale needs to be more rewarding for people to see they can live a great life without crime.

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CRIME

Indians march to end ‘slavery’ after worker death shakes Italy

Thousands of Indian farm labourers urged an end to "slavery" in Italy on Tuesday after the gruesome death of a worker shone a light on the brutal exploitation of undocumented migrants.

Indians march to end 'slavery' after worker death shakes Italy

Satnam Singh, 31, who had been working without legal papers, died last week after his arm was sliced off by a machine. The farmer he was working for dumped him by the road, along with his severed limb.

“He was thrown out like a dog. There is exploitation every day, we suffer it every day, it must end now,” said Gurmukh Singh, head of the Indian community in the Lazio region of central Italy.

“We come here to work, not to die,” he told AFP.

Children held up colourful signs reading “Justice for Satnam Singh” as the procession snaked through Latina, a city in a rural area south of Rome that is home to tens of thousands of Indian migrant workers.

Indians have worked in the Agro Pontino – the Pontine Marshes – since the mid-1980s, harvesting pumpkins, leeks, beans and tomatoes, and working on flower farms or in buffalo mozzarella production.

Singh’s death is being investigated, but it has sparked a wider debate in Italy over how to tackle systemic abuses in the agriculture sector, where use of undocumented workers and their abuse by farmers or gangmasters is rife.

“Satnam died in one day, I die every day. Because I too am a labour victim,” said Parambar Singh, whose eye was seriously hurt in a work accident.

“My boss said he couldn’t take me to hospital because I didn’t have a contract,” said the 33-year-old, who has struggled to work since.

“I have been waiting 10 months for justice,” he said.

Paid a pittance

The workers get paid an average of 20 euros ($21) a day for up to 14 hours labour, according to the Osservatorio Placido Rizzotto, which analyses working conditions in the agriculture industry.

Far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has sought to reduce the number of undocumented migrants to Italy, while increasing pathways for legal migration for non-EU workers to tackle labour shortages.

But according to the Confagricoltura agribusiness association, only around 30 percent of workers given a visa actually travel to Italy, meaning there are never enough labourers to meet farmers’ needs.

This month, Meloni said Italy’s visa system was being exploited by organised crime groups to smuggle in illegal migrants.

She condemned the circumstances of Singh’s death, saying they were “inhumane acts that do not belong to the Italian people”.

“I hope that this barbarism will be harshly punished,” she told her cabinet ministers last week.

Italy’s financial police identified nearly 60,000 undocumented workers from January 2023 to June 2024.

But Italy’s largest trade union CGIL estimates that as many as 230,000 people – over a quarter of the country’s seasonal agricultural workers – do not have a contract.

While some are Italian, most are undocumented foreigners.

Female workers fare particularly badly, earning even less than their male counterparts and in some cases suffering sexual exploitation, it says.

“We all need regular job contracts, not to be trapped in this slavery,” said Kaur Akveer, a 37-year-old who was part of a group of women in colourful saris marching behind the community leaders.

“Satnam was like my brother. He must be the last Indian to die,” she said.

By AFP’s Ella Ide

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