The fear of crime, the sentiments of insecurity continue to penetrate the Italian society. Common experience and surveys confirm this: not only those surveys effected in occasion of recurring painful events. Millions of pages have interpreted these sentiments.
Is the new fear the fruit of a transformation of social relations? The effect of the disintegration of certainty with regard to the Welfare system crisis?
The fear of the great migrations? Or the consequence of inadequate public investment? The analyses on the causes of social alarm are legitimate, useful, praiseworthy, but they do not always help to find remedies. Not only must the causes be examined, but also the modifications, that is: the dynamics of the phenomena. And today, in matters of social alarm and fear of crimes, certain changes can be noted.
The need of security is de-idealized, no longer manifested as a corollary of a vision of society. Security is considered a basic need, without labels, fundamental to existence and civil life. Furthermore, new attitudes of reaction to crime are becoming evident. The courageous awakening of the entrepreneurs in an area stricken by mafia crimes is certainly commendable. The request for action against organized crime is no longer simple declamation, but has become a collective commitment. The civil society has not limited itself to asking for public intervention, but has wanted to react and take action.
In the new context characterized by a plurality of threats and the emergent positive social reactions, what is the state of the security? How can a strategy of prevention be linked to the social needs? What actions are required to meet the demands which come from the civil society? And again: Are there unknown factors regarding the international context? The political violence can be considered defeated and excluded from the Italian scene? Are the policies and rules that regulate the prevention and investigation adequate? I put many questions on all this to Antonio Manganelli, who has been the Chief of Police since the 25 June, 2007.

In recent years, especially after the 11th September, a significant sense of insecurity has been spreading, also in the media, which involves everyone – often in an irrational and complex way. We are facing a phenomenon characterized by a wide range of factors: personal and collective, objective and subjective, social, relational, cultural and psychological. A phenomenon, however, not always perfectly corresponding to the objective reality of danger and of that ascribable to the data on criminality. The most important sociological researches agree on the fact that the greater part of the more anxiety generating factors is almost always unconnected to authentic criminal phenomena, those – in other terms – incorporable within the criminal framework. One thinks of the precariousness of jobs; the frequency of fatal accidents on the job; unemployment; the so-called mass de-qualification; the generalized terrorist threat; the pension question; the salary question; the lack of road-safety; bullying in the schools; the social decline; the aggressiveness – also verbal – the arrogance and uncivilized behaviour and so on.
If we reflect, only for a moment, on each one of these phenomena, it is able to affect the perception of security that each one of us constructs daily within ourselves.
The global village in which we live is, in itself, a generator of insecurity: no-one invents dangers, but the media certainly makes them materialize with force, transmitting into the houses of each one of us every kind of violence verified in any part of the world. It is also true that urban and architectural solutions have, sometimes, determined serious consequences from the viewpoint of security and everyday liveability. The often irrational construction of neighbourhoods-ghettos has concentrated in a negative physical reality, populations already distinguished by problems of economic and social order, which are hardly able to find a positive solution in those contexts.
Certainly, the quantity, nature and characteristics of the authors of crimes constitute important factors in the genesis of the everyday fear, but we should not forget the many factors, which we could define as “external” to the criminal world, and that must be faced from all angles by a formation of participants who are, obviously, not only those of the police.

In the first place we need to understand what we intend by ‘prevention’. In the case that we wish to bring everything into the ambit of the normative competence attributed to the Police Force, then the prevention is identified, essentially, in the activity of control of the territories, both physical and virtual, with an end to obtaining a full knowledge of what is happening in them and prevent the commission, not only of criminal acts, but also of manifestations of incivility or aggressiveness; these latter are equally able to produce insupportable social tension and sensations of insecurity.
Prevention, understood in this way – which we could define “of the police” – must be considered the primary task of the Police Force, to be exercised through a constant and visible presence, which moves, obviously, with a continual and careful examination of the adequacy of the dislocation of the forces on the different territories.
I believe less in a diversification of the strategies, than in an action of control that should be quantitively calibrated according to the different problems that affect each territory, and the alternative and concurrent solutions which can be offered by the entire forces, institutional and otherwise, of the various social contexts.
The “of the police” prevention, however, limits itself to rendering the commission of a crime more difficult in a given situation, but is not able to reduce the number of persons disposed to commit a crime, and does not affect, even minimally, the causes that lead to this criminal behaviour. The potential delinquent moves, even just a few meters, to strike those who are not protected on the situational level.
So, we must now refer to the so-called social prevention; we must speak of the complexity of the interventions that the civil society is able to provide; this concept assumes a connotation of splendid breathing space and involves all of the actors able to influence, positively, everyday living from the social, political, economic and cultural aspects.
One need only think of how much the agencies of the so-called “System of the autonomies” are able to do in the areas of urban liveability, school, viability, health and so on.
Fully aware that a magic formula does not exist, I believe it is necessary to know how to mix, opportunely, one and the other solution, adapting the instruments to the diversities that characterize the variegated territories of our Country.

In 27 years of the application of Law 121, I believe that noteworthy steps forward have been made to adapt the “Security System” of our Country to the profound political, institutional, social and economic changes that have come about.
It is up to the legislative and executive powers to individuate the necessary normative and administrative instruments to constantly up-date the roles that each central, regional and local institution can have in the “Security System” of our Country. I can tell you that there already exists an ample and effective collaboration between the Police Force, on the one side, and the Regions, Local Authorities and the various thematic Associations, on the other. Collaboration based on continual dialogue has already produced very important moments of understanding: as an example, I refer to the Agreements and Protocols stipulated with many Regions and numerous Municipalities.
Regarding the composition of the Committees for order and security, I do not think it is a problem of adequacy of the possible components, also because the Prefects have the faculty of inviting whom they think is important to tackle the various questions on the agenda.
Instead, a problem of responsibility exists, which should be better identified and attributed to institutional subjects different from the Police Forces, until a concrete and effective involvement by them is truly realized.

Allow me to express, once more, my approval of the decisions adopted, last September, by the Regional Directive of the Sicilian industrialists, according to which the entrepreneurs who do not rebel against the extortion racket, who pay protection money or in whatever form, collaborate with the mafia, will be expelled from Confindustria. It is a magnificent reaction of the civil society.
The mafia, in fact, cannot and must not be considered only as a question of public order. This clear stand against payment of protection money represents a concrete step forward in the construction of a social “fertile ground” where instruments can be cultivated that are able to neutralize the mafia organizations, much more effectively than the Police Force or the Judiciary. I am firmly convinced of the necessity of maintaining and strengthening the dialogue with the organizations of the socio-economic world. The Department of Public Security has been doing this for years. The Operative Programme “Security for the development of the Italian Mezzogiorno” – which invests structural community funds for the improvement of the socio-economic conditions of the most disadvantaged regions of our territory – has been repeated for more than ten years through an extremely close collaboration with the Regions and Local Authorities, as well as with the world of entrepreneurs and representatives of the workers.

Also in our Country we can see a growing anxiety concerning the categories and subjects held to be traditionally dangerous, among which also the immigrants are placed.
Many Italians fear that the foreign presence can provoke an increase in the criminality and many tie the need of adequate policies of integration to this fear of a criminal immigration.
I consider that these opinions, in part, do not correspond to the reality of the facts: it is debatable that the fear manifested corresponds to a growth in criminality or that a greater aptitude towards criminal behaviour is, in fact, recorded among the immigrants.
It is certainly true that deviant behaviour can represent one of the possible ways which opens itself to the immigrant in the absence of integration possibilities in the host society. Nevertheless, at times, the arrival at deviant behaviour passes through complex ways that do not necessarily lead to total marginalization, but require the interaction with the host society although with a marginal component of same by the persons committed to crime.
It is also necessary to say that amidst the possible examples of deviant behaviour there exists one that is characteristic and exclusive to the foreign population: the entry and the illegal residence on Italian territory.
Probably the mass clandestine disembarkations, which, in any case, represent the point of the iceberg, are one of the aspects of foreign immigration which most strikes the sensitivity and collective imagination, also due to the blaring publicity they obtain from the mass media. It will be difficult for several generations of Italians to forget the images of the derelict boats that bring hundreds of desperate refugees into our Country.
Furthermore, it is necessary to mention that the main flows of clandestine immigration to Italy are, very often, constituted by migrants who are victims of the odious phenomenon of the trade in human beings, managed by criminal organizations of ethnic matrix and finalized to the sexual exploitation and work, or rather, of the employment of minors in the begging occupation. Mainly foreign criminal groups are involved in such activities.
It is not up to the Chief of Police to modify the policies of entry of either the regular or clandestine non-EC immigrant. I am, however, firmly convinced that a full and productive action against the phenomenon of clandestine immigration and of the trade in human beings cannot but see the synergic involvement of all the Countries of the European Union.
Our investigative activities into such criminal organizations are conducted through the network of international police cooperation. On this front – the adoption of specific protocols of collaboration between the Countries of origin and those of destination, as well as the exchange of information through the channels of Interpol and the Officials of communication – have allowed us to obtain some very positive results.

In April of last year, a young nomad, Marco Ahmetovich, driving his truck and in an obvious state of drunkenness, causes the death of four young people, at Appignano of Tronto. The episode generates great outrage and emotion among the population, causing immediate local reaction, culminating with the burning of the “camp”, abandoned, the previous evening, by the 40 or so residents, for fear of retaliation. The mediatic clamour given to the subsequent concession of house arrest to Ahmetovich – detained for a previous conviction – and the pre-announced hypothesis of exploiting the images of the incident to promote a line of clothing, finishes in triggering further manifestations of intolerance, with intimidating acts towards the nomad’s lawyer, the judge who had decided the release of Ahmetovich and the owner of the apartment occupied by the malefactor.
In Rome, the following October, Giovanni Reggiani is assaulted by a young Romanian, Nicolae Mailat and dies following this violence. This episode registers, in several parts of Italy, a significant increase of cases of intolerance, of a clear emulative nature, towards Romanian citizens, and there appear many wall writings of the racist and xenophobia variety. The day following the death of Reggiani a group of young people attack Romanians in a supermarket parking lot in a peripheral zone of the Capital. For this episode certain elements of the Right are arrested on 26th February last – among whom are those responsible for the devastation of the 11th November, the day on which Gabriele Sandri died.
Paradigmatic in their substantial evolution, the two episodes underline very significant keys to interpretation. In the second case it emerges how the acts of violence happen in localities already affected by environmental degradation of the large urban centres. And besides, the objective difficulties of realizing the prompt clearance of unauthorized settlements, with the consequent increase of irregular presence elsewhere, is seen as a sort of abandonment by the public administrations, which can only be faced by a “direct intervention”. However, it should be stated that the number of settlements compared with the number of verified episodes of intolerance, denote the absence of a real and authentic racist attitude.
The episode, which happened in the sound Ascolana province, strengthens the consideration in virtue of which, the generally positive picture which is shown by a reduced number of similar events, must not lead to the under-estimation of the risk connected to the possible involvement of single or groups of extremists who, exploiting the emotional wave, attempt to raise the level of criminal conduct, seeking always greater visibility for themselves through the means of actions of strong impact.
It is clearly evident how the perception of insecurity (which increases enormously in such circumstances) is easily used by groups already ‘ideologized’ in the racist and anti-immigrant key, who by feeding the protest of the populations, seek to acquire consensus.
One can draw the opinion then that the anti-immigrant actions are not rooted, but are manifested, also in violent form, on occasions of criminal events that arouse particular emotions in the community.
But there is more. The growing presence (above all in the big cities) of foreigners who, tendentially, are oriented to aggregate in homogenous ethnic groups, finishes with constituting a further element of criticality which, in some communities, increases the perception of insecurity: emblematic are the cases of throwing Molotov cocktails into the nomad camps of the Capital, of the Provinces of Genoa and Lecco, as well as, against Islamic cultural centres of the Milanese hinterland.
An aspect, this last, which risks producing, with time, processes of isolation and marginalization from which, inevitably, will develop radical and violent conduct.

Certainly, the phenomenon of organized crime in our Country has characteristics of dangerousness which necessitates a constant action of prevention and counter-action, exercised always at the highest level, also taking into consideration the different typologies of associative criminal manifestations.
The Sicilian mafia, for example, continues to be conditioned by the Cosa Nostra mafiosa organization, which maintains a strongly hierarchical structure in the verticistic sense, following a “low profile” strategic line and “internal pacification” in order to maintain the balances reached.
Also the ‘ndrangheta is always highly competitive and always more oriented to the trans-national criminal activities, in the first position, drug trafficking, in particular, cocaine.
Unlike the afore-mentioned, the camorra presents itself, still today, not as a verticistic-type structure, but as a plurality of criminal aggregations – sometimes allied, sometimes in conflict among themselves – although this characteristic does not, in any way, reduce the offensive potential nor the experimented capacity to conclude business with foreign criminal groups.
The Apulian criminality is just as dangerous, organized in many factions, often in bloody conflict with each other. Neither can we forget that for several years now in our Country, also criminal aggregations constituted of non-EC citizens operate, which present characteristics according to the ethic group to which they belong, and interact not only with their countries of origin, but also with the criminal associations of the Countries of transit and destination of the international illicit traffic in which they are involved.
Allow me to mention that the action of the Police Forces is always stronger and more effective: in the last two years alone, and in particular, in recent months, many very dangerous criminals, still at the head of important mafia organizations, have been captured. Even twelve on the list of thirty of the most dangerous bosses have been handed over to justice, after many years in hiding. Let us think of Pasquale Condello of the ‘ndrangheta, of the camorrist, Vincenzo Licciardi or, again, of the Mafiosi Salvatore and Sandro Lo Piccolo, and to finish, of the “boss of bosses”, Bernardo Provenzano. I do not believe, therefore, in the efficacy of particular shock therapy, even less of the intervention of the Army. A safe city is not an armoured city; a militarized city (which, on the contrary, feeds the tension and the perception of a permanent state of insecurity), but a vibrant living city.
I am in favour of the refinement of investigative techniques; of the instruments of aggression to illicit earning; of the action of prevention, but above all, in the liberation of the civil and productive society, which must react with actions similar to that of the courageous Sicilian Confindustria.

The criminal spiral that places the attacks of New York, London and Madrid within a single, global message of terror, cannot yet be considered interrupted. The outcome of the investigations with which, also in Europe, terrorist projects have been thwarted, thanks to the synergy of the anti-terrorist and intelligence structures, lead to the opinion that no western State is immune “a priori” from extremist attacks.
Contemplation of the achieved terrorist successes, reveals, unfortunately, how Al Qaeda and its various formations, in particular, those operating in North Africa, have demonstrated to have an organization, a capillarity of its own articulations and a capacity to communicate, above all on the web, such as to warn against any minimum relaxation of security precautions.
Specific reasons of preoccupation come from the ever more frequent processes of radicalization which involve citizens of States of the European Union, mostly immigrants of second generation taken up with problems of identity and who refuse any kind of integration, making them easy targets for the Jihadist propaganda.
The virus of religious fanaticism spares no-one. We cannot fail to remember how the attacks of London and Glasgow of June, 2007 – which, by mere chance did not involve victims among the civilians – were planned and realized by two medical doctors, barely 30 years old, one of Iraqi origin and the other, Indian. These individuals were radicalized over a relatively brief period of time. Notwithstanding, from the Western society viewpoint, their integration process could be said to have been completed?
A vaccine to immunize our society against this kind of virus having yet to be found, the challenge which faces our Agencies of security, and more in general, all of the institutions, is that of intercepting the paths and ways of radicalization, diffusing as many sensors as possible, and stimulating the diagnostic ability of the phenomenon.

After the operations conducted against the Red Brigades of Galesi and Lioce – which cost, as we know, a very dearly in blood, and of the arrest of their followers in the Communist Party Political Military, that is to say, of that formation which reaped the inheritance of the supporter wing of the Red Brigade – we have recorded several actions of solidarity – sometimes violent – which testify to the persistence of potentially subversive turmoil.
The contribution furnished by the hard core performs a decisive role in the radicalization of the protest. These individuals, from prison, continue to direct, in terms of policy and ideological ideas, the dynamism of subjects interested in developing a revolutionary path.
Among these emerging realities, I wish to mention, in particular, the activism of the Revolutionary Front for Communism, which has recently circulated a document in which a regenerated strategy of the guerrilla warfare is outlined.
Not very reassuring signs also come from the anarchical-insurrectionism quarter, inside of which the component that proposes to raise the level of the fight against the State and embrace the armed struggle, is always very active.
Among other things, the possibility should not be disregarded that around specific campaigns of struggle, like the Anti-Prison Front, can be realized dangerous unions between anarchic and Marxist-Leninist environments, susceptible to lead to common operative activities.
Turning our attention to the subversive Right, we register a certain effervescence of the environment, especially during street demonstrations. Nevertheless, until now, indications of a possible resumption of terrorist activities has not been registered.

I believe that the question of security, for some time now, is placed at the centre of debate of the Western societies, independent of the forms and the institutional-political systems of the Government. Principally, because, in a world which, compared to 50 years ago, enjoys decidedly better conditions of well-being, the security is part of the quality of life of the citizens.
Citizens who, concomitant with the increase of the quantitative and qualitative levels of participation in the decisional moments of the management of the res publica, are certainly and, I would say rightly, more exacting on the subject of security, extending, among other things, this concept to a series of conditions of life which, often, are not ascribable to cases of criminal violation
I also maintain that security should be an objective shared by all the political parts and that, substantially, the regulative and administrative instruments identified and identifiable by the various political alignments to achieve this end are not so very different among them. This is why I say that we should not “neutralize” the question of the political debate, because this very comparison of ideas, if correctly and effectively concluded, can serve to strengthen that knowledge and understanding of the Law, which I consider an indefeasible element if one really wishes to obtain significant and lasting results.

The Code of Criminal Procedure is a good text, in the vanguard among the Western Countries. Certainly, any regulative text and, in particular, those which regulate the investigation procedures and sanctions in criminal matters, necessitate a constant adjustment of the relative instruments, above all, of investigations and prevention, to the requirements of a modern and strongly evolving society.
I believe it most important that, on the problems of justice, concrete proposals are formulated, which serve, in the first place, to recuperate the confidence in the State, that seek to reassure the citizens and decrease that sense of insecurity about which we have spoken. A point, which I feel is absolutely central to any proposal of modification of the Code of Criminal Procedure, is the certainty of the sentence.
Whoever is brought to justice and definitively condemned must, in fact, really serve the inflicted sentence. Otherwise, the justice is no longer just, it breaks the rules, illegality becomes more convenient, and the people no longer believe in it and, the insecurity spreads.
Another fundamental aspect: length of the trials. Recent studies done at the Supreme Court tell us that the time needed to complete all the phases and levels of justice is over 8 years. It is not up to me to indicate the solutions – certainly difficult – which must be individuated to resolve the question. Also this is a great problem which renders justice a little less just.

More than once I have said that security is a benefit that belongs to everyone and it must be sought and defended by everyone, with every legal instrument that allows, in a framework of sure, harmonious and shared rules, the constant adjustment of the actions of the Police; the Judiciary; the central and local Administrators; the representative organizations of the society, globally understood, to the real needs that a peaceful, civil common living requires.
Obviously, the security system of a Country must be adequate to the specific form of State; foreign experiences are important, to be observed with attention, but certainly not to imitate uncritically. In Italy, with the present form of State, I do not think that a federalism of the security can be imagined.
In a framework of reference, in which the security assumes different connotations in relation to the diversity of the Italian territories and of their socio-economic and cultural differentiations, the local Police have rightly entered to be part of the group of actors deputized to the management of the security of the citizens and to the guarantee of the minimum level of common living within our communities. I believe that a system of “participated and integrated security” must always be more asserted, with the Minister of the Interior who, in his capacity as National Authority of Public Security, involves the other public, private, national and local Institutions in a unanimous commitment to produce more security and better daily liveability of the “territories” and of the life and work environments.
In our Country, the security is the result of a system which is firmly homogenous, but, at the same time, particularly complex and variegated.
If this homogeneity represents the essential characteristic of our Constitutional Charter, the complexity is a product of the socio-economic evolution which requires an always more multi-regulative approach to the problems, both from the juridical-administrative and applicative-operative aspects. Much has been done and is being done. It is sufficient to think of the various agreements stipulated between State and Region which, on the basis of the constitutional form, actuated with the Constitutional Law, 18th October, 2001, No. 3, serve to regulate forms of coordination between said Institutions, in the matter of urban security.
Such agreements constitute “homogenous frameworks of reference” with an end to a programmed and coordinated action on the matters of the integrated policies of security for all the public actors involved, to which must lead and inspire also the numerous protocols of agreement and the Contracts of security stipulated, up to now, by the Prefects with those in charge of the local agencies.
On a concrete level, the agreements underwritten with the Regions aim, in particular, at realizing integrated informative systems: the inter-connection of the Operative Rooms of the Police Forces and of the Municipal Police Corps, as well as the combined professional refresher courses of general expertise of the Police Forces and of the Municipal Police Corps of the Region.

The “proximity police” are a reality already considerably present within the social context of various European Countries, and are the object of constant evaluation. In Italy, the “proximity police” are not a professional speciality, but rather, they expresses a philosophy of intervention: a sphere which encloses all initiatives that go towards a new operative methodology based on a more decided type of attention to the needs of the citizen.
Without doubt, the most significant enterprise in this area, and around which strong expectations from the public are registered is the “Neighbourhood policeman and carabineer”.
As already said, the security concept today, is no longer, and not only connected to the public expectations of not falling victim to a criminal act, but is understood as a factor strictly tied to the quality of life and to a set of conditions that discipline daily life.
Up to the present, the experience and reflection of study conducted on the phenomenon have attested how the solution that offers the greatest guarantees of success to the ever-pressing question of security is represented, primarily, by the liveability of the streets and by the identification of the citizen with his own territory.
In this context, the Forces of Law and Order constitute the functional instrument of greater and pronounced incisiveness, but it is still evident that the delicate task of producing security cannot remain entrusted solely to a network of formal control (Judiciary, Police Force), the latter having to sustain, above all, a spontaneous and informal social control (solidarity, civic pride, voluntary work, teaching lawfulness). No longer, therefore, a solution of only order and bureaucracy, characterized by the employment of men and means of a decided militarization, but a new operative strategy based on a tighter logic of service.
The “Neighbourhood Policeman and Carabineer” – figures that are very different from the traditional patrols on their beats – are born for the precise reason of being that missing link on the territory which is close to the common people and to understand and avert the insecurities.
They express a new integrative service of the control system of the territory, directed towards effecting a more penetrating and constant “cognitive monitoring” of the environment, which is aligned with a “physical control” developed by the other operative forms already in action, such as the squad cars, motorbike patrols, mounted patrols, the campers and others.
The “Neighbourhood Policeman and Carabineer” in their role of “antenna” for a defined zone, overcome, therefore, the dualism between Police of prevention and Police of repression, uniting both the functions in a position of equilibrium, and giving new dimension to the mission of the Police Force.
The man on the street and the various socio-productive categories have decidedly appreciated the presence of the Policeman and the Carabineer in their neighbourhood. It is a confirmation of the validity of the model adopted, but also the most pressing stimulation to new and more complex controls of the security.
We mention that the requests for assistance from the citizens to the neighbourhood police and carabineer have strongly increased. This means that the request of security is no longer limited to a mere repression of unlawfulness, but extends always more to the collaboration in resolving more complex problems.
Their strength lies in the position of privileged observers of the social reality, which permits them to see for themselves episodes and facts and to signal intervention by partners more suitable to the solution of the single problem.
The experience that our Country is making with regard to the “Neighbourhood Policeman and Carabineer” project, and from other ‘proximity’ experiments, evidences the inevitable necessity that the Police Forces take steps to progressively extend the gamma of their services, identifying and proposing a series of other possible solutions which relegates the repressive moment to a truly "estrema ratio".