Crimes against women, jump in warnings in the last ten years

From just over 400 in 2015 to over six thousand in 2025. In ten years, the increase in the number of warnings issued by the Questore for domestic violence behaviour has been dramatic and testifies both to the growth of the institutions' capacity to react and to a greater propensity of women to report situations of violence and stalking.

The warning is an administrative preventive measure that in 2013 Decree Law No. 93 extended to domestic violence. The Red Code of 2019 (Law No. 69) and the Roccella Law of 2023 (Law No. 168) then strengthened it by widening both the scope of application (not only beatings and injuries but also threats, home invasions and revenge porn) and the cases in which it is possible to proceed ex officio on the basis of reports from third parties, such as neighbours or health professionals (thus without the victim's petition). Except in 2020, the year of the pandemic, the use of this measure has steadily increased and more than doubled in 2024 when it went from 2,584 measures in 2023 to 5,986 in 2024 (a leap determined precisely by the Roccella law). In 2025, according to the Ministry of the Interior, there was a further increase of 5 per cent. It is difficult to say whether this curve signals an increase in violence or, in line with what happens with other crimes, reflects a progressive emergence of the 'submerged': that is, whether these are crimes that, unlike in the past, are now reported. It certainly shows that, on the one hand, we are faced with a phenomenon that is difficult to eradicate despite legislative and cultural developments. On the other hand, the capacity of the system to take action and intervene in good time has grown. For the investigators the key is precisely this, a strategy that combines speed, that of the police, and listening, that of the associations working to protect women at risk.

However, increased prevention helps to stop the escalation of violence, persecution and threats that can lead to feminicide. In the last ten years, in fact, homicides in which the victim is a woman have decreased and, even if it is not possible to put the two figures in direct correlation, intercepting so-called 'spy crimes' (injuries, beatings, stalking, threats) at an early stage helps to reduce the risk of degeneration into a blood crime.

In more detail, the reports of the Ministry of the Interior show that, from 2015 to 2025, voluntary homicides in which the victim is a woman decreased by 33.1 per cent. However, the decrease was smaller than that of murders in which the victim is a man (-42.7 per cent), caused by the drastic decrease in murders involving mafia-type crime (-72 per cent).

Last year, however, the reduction in murders of women was higher than that of men and the overall average. In 2025, female victims fell from 119 to 97 (- 18.5 per cent), while the overall decrease was 14.9 per cent. The decrease continued in the first quarter of 2026, when there were 15 female victims (compared to 19 in the same period of 2025).