For the Carabinieri investment in young people between 18 and 24 years old

Innovation as an engine and tradition as a shield. It is a Carabinieri force that looks forward as outlined and described by Commander General Salvatore Luongo, interviewed by Roberto Arditti (columnist for 'Il Tempo'), during the event 'The Force, the value of legality and international experience' during the Trento Festival of Economics. With the prospect of focusing more and more on training but also on contamination to open up to young people.

"We want to invest in young people because we believe that young people are carriers of ideas, certainly good ideas that can then be transformed into concrete actions. But the problem of demographic decline looms large: 'The pool we are working on today is a smaller pool than we had a long time ago'. As the commanding general admitted, 'the young person is attracted by many things, but when he does not see the ability to identify with an organisation that is functional to his human and professional growth, he turns away from that organisation and is more attracted by easy results than by sacrifice, which is why we must invest in training'. All in the name of the need for a change of approach.

Hence Luongo's perspective of attracting new skills and competences through the figure of the auxiliary carabiniere. The idea of is to nurture a voluntary reserve that allows young people to engage with the force for a limited period of time. "A young person aged 18 to 24 comes to us and tries out. We qualify him, give him all the relevant skills, put him in the game. Then he decides: if he feels that that is the life he can pursue even for a short time he stays, otherwise he brings a wealth of experience and goes back into the civilised world'. This is what Luongo also calls 'contamination': 'We need to be contaminated, but at the same time this contamination can be a virtuous model for us to give back to society'.

In the awareness of the history, tradition and role of the Carabinieri, there is therefore an attempt to provide a response to a changing world: 'Today we are faced with many challenges,' remarked the commanding general, 'think of artificial intelligence, quantum algorithms, space, and everything related to cybersecurity. Today the world is highly digital and the economy is shifting. We think of cryptocurrencies'. And it is precisely to the fight against illicit activities committed with the use of cryptocurrencies that the Arma has dedicated a specialised department.

Training therefore becomes a strategic lever. Training that for the Carabinieri is based on three fundamental concepts: knowing, knowing how to be and knowing how to do. And, in an increasingly multi-ethnic and multi-cultural context, investment in language knowledge and skills is also an increasing priority. "In our schools," Luongo explained, "there are three stages of language training. The first is elementary, the second is specialisation, and the third is done for officers attending the higher course, where they do an intensive course according to their abilities'. Already now, there are personnel who speak Chinese, Arabic in its various facets fluently. And this makes it possible to cope with possible requests from the judicial authorities to concentrate personnel with specialised language skills where the need arises.