Homicides among minors: +150% in one year. Mix of causes and lack of prevention

In the last 12 months, homicides committed by minors in Italia have increased by more than 150%, from 14 to 35 cases and now account for about 12% of the total, according to data from the Criminal Analysis Service (Criminalpol) and reports for the opening of the 2026 judicial year. This figure marks a break from the trend of recent years and indicates a profound transformation of juvenile malaise, which can no longer be attributed to the traditional logic of crime. What is striking is not only the increase in numbers, but the change in the nature of violence: less linked to organised contexts and increasingly the expression of individual fragility or group dynamics, which are difficult to interpret and intercept at an early stage.

According to the same sources, at the same time in 2024, the incidence of homicides committed by under-18s tripled, rising to 11% of the total, against 4% in the previous year, while the share of underage victims also increased from 4% to 7%, confirming a growth not only of the perpetrators but also of the overall impact of the phenomenon. According to the experts, however, it would be reductive to interpret these data solely from a psychiatric or judicial perspective: alongside individual fragility, cultural, educational and social factors also emerge that contribute to changing the dynamics of youth violence. This is one of the topics addressed and debated in Alghero during the 3rd Congress of the Italian Society of Psychiatry and Forensic Psychopathology.

'We are not only facing a security problem,' explain Sippf president, psychiatrists Eugenio Aguglia and Liliana Lorettu, 'but a change in the quality of distress. In many cases, violence is the first visible sign of a psychic fragility that had not been diagnosed'. According to the available data, the percentage of underage victims is also on the rise, while the overall figure for homicides in Italia continues to fall. "A paradox that confirms how juvenile crime today represents a counter-trend - they continue -. In the last ten years, in fact, total homicides in the country have decreased drastically - in particular those related to organised crime, which have dropped by up to 72% - while the juvenile component is now the only growing item".

One of the most relevant elements concerns the role of substances. 'The use of synthetic cannabinoids, alcohol and drug combinations can act as a triggering factor, amplifying impulsive behaviour or determining states of behavioural alterations that are difficult to distinguish, clinically and legally,' explains Massimo Clerici, psychiatrist and president of the Italian Society of Addiction Psychiatry. Today, we are increasingly faced with pictures in which it is complex to distinguish between psychiatric disorder, substance effect and criminal responsibility, and it is precisely this grey area that poses difficulties for both forensic psychiatry and the justice system'. In particular, the combined use of substances ('poly-drug use'), in particular cannabinoids and mixes of new psychoactive substances, can act as a symptomatological 'activator', in particular psychotic, contributing to the complexity of the expert assessment between mental illness and transient altered state.

The issue of imputability therefore becomes central. Many young offenders do not have a previous diagnosis and violence may represent the first manifest episode of a neurodevelopmental disorder or vulnerability that has not been intercepted. This is compounded by the difficulties of the care system. Juvenile penal institutions show an increase in average daily attendance of more than 30 per cent, with 80 per cent of admissions linked to precautionary measures, often in the absence of structured therapeutic paths. Between 2023 and 2024, in particular, the average presence in the PMIs increased by 30.9 per cent, also as a result of regulatory interventions that expanded the use of pre-trial detention, with the result of concentrating an increasing share of young people awaiting trial in the institutes. "The risk is that the prison becomes a container for psychological distress," Clerici observes, "because there is a lack of adequate therapeutic communities and integrated paths between psychiatry, addiction services and the judicial system. "Added to this is a structural lack of specialist support," states Carlo Locatelli, Director of the Toxicology Unit, Poison Control Centre, Irccs Hospital of Pavia, ICS Maugeri, Pavia. "An increasing proportion of young offenders present problems of addiction to new drugs associated with psychiatric disorders, but the absence of therapeutic communities and dedicated 'territorial teams' can often lead to the improper use of prison as the prevailing response.