The Italian government has approved a law that will make it easier to arrest and imprison children as young as 14 as part of its crackdown on juvenile crime after a series of high-profile cases involving teen gangs.
Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister, said “juvenile crime is spreading like wildfire” after her cabinet approved the law, which also stipulates imprisonment of up to two years for the parents of school truants.
The law has been named after Caviano, a socially deprived, crime-ridden suburb of Naples where Meloni, who leads the far-right Brothers of Italy, travelled last week after the alleged repeated gang-rape of two girls. During the visit, Meloni promised to increase security and rehabilitate the neighbourhood.
In a rare press conference on Thursday, she said her government was “putting itself out there” to tackle an issue she said was neglected by previous administrations. “It is not an easy challenge,” she said.
The law means that children as young as 14 can be arrested on the spot, for example if they are caught carrying weapons or drugs.
Authorities will also have the power to confiscate mobile phones from juvenile criminals and ban them from frequenting specific areas.
To date, a child criminal could be kept in pre-trial detention, or under house arrest, only if the crime committed carried a sentence of nine years or more, which ruled out most crimes apart from murder. This has been reduced to six years, making it easier to impose pre-trial custody for less serious crimes.
Meloni said the law was designed to dissuade minors from crime and included measures to “reintegrate and re-educate” young criminals.
“Nobody wants to throw 12-year-olds in jail,” she said, claiming the measures were “preventative and not repressive”.
Nevertheless, Meloni promised “life imprisonment” for minors who committed murder, during a meeting on Thursday with the mother of Giovanbattista Cutolo, a 24-year-old musician who was shot dead in late August in central Naples, allegedly by a 17-year-old during a row over parking.
The law also follows the arrests last month of seven males, including one aged 17, for alleged gang-rape in Palermo, Sicily.
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister, said minors who shot guns should be “punished as adults” while renewing calls for rapists to be chemically castrated.
Meanwhile, Meloni has defended her partner, Andrea Giambruno, a TV journalist who last week provoked controversy after saying women should “avoid getting drunk” if they wanted to avoid being raped.
Meloni, who has a seven-year-old daughter with Giambruno, told reporters that his words had been misinterpreted and that while they were “hasty”, they were similar to what her mother had told her, which was to “keep your eyes peeled and head screwed on”.
She said: “Unfortunately rapists exist and we must not lower our guard.”
Although the Caviano law takes immediate effect it will need to be ratified by parliament within 60 days, otherwise it will expire.
Elly Schlein, the leader of the opposition Democratic party, said her first impression of the law was that it appeared to focus only on “repression” while “prevention is also needed”.
Meloni’s coalition government had made cracking down on crime, especially drug dealers, a priority during its election campaign last year. The government came to power in October, with its first policy being a law punishing the organisers of illegal raves.
