Muggings, from M5S to Lega pressing to toughen the law. "We need ex officio prosecution"

There is a bipartisan front of mayors rising up against pickpockets and thieves and asking the government for changes to the Cartabia reform that excludes ex officio prosecution for these crimes. Supporting them from the opposition is the Five Star Movement and in the executive, the League with the undersecretaries of the Interior and Justice, Molteni and Ostellari, who announce that they are already working on appropriate corrections in a new security decree. That of the Carroccio appears to be a step backwards in response to the demands of some mayors, given that three years ago the party voted in Parliament for the measure of the then guardasigilli.

Meanwhile, the territories are heating up in view of the meeting in the coming hours between the National Association of Municipalities and the Ministry of the Interior, which will focus on urban security. The first to invoke urgent correctives to Cartabia is the mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, from the centre-right (elected with Coraggio Italia): 'We cannot resign ourselves to the normalisation of crimes that damage people's lives and the city's image on a daily basis. The difficulties start from that reform which, although animated by shareable principles, has modified the prosecution of certain crimes, leading to substantial impunity for serial perpetrators of 'minor' crimes that can only be prosecuted on complaint, such as theft by stealth: a rigmarole that, between complaint and judicial process, is never followed by foreign tourists, the first victims of pickpocketing".

Brugnaro's full support comes from the mayor of Ancona, Daniele Silvetti, also from the centre-right: 'Nowadays pickpockets get away with it: the people who witness the theft cannot report the crime in place of the victim who, therefore, cannot count on anyone's help and finds himself isolated. The situation becomes paradoxical,' Silvetti emphasises, 'if we think that the policeman who sees a scene of pickpocketing cannot intervene unless the victim, who must in fact file a complaint, asks him to. Without the complaint lodged immediately, the police cannot even make an arrest in flagrante delicto. So the policeman who sees the thief running away cannot stop him'. However, the mayor of Catanzaro, Nicola Fiorita, of the centre-left, also spoke of a 'questionable regulatory reform'.

The leader of the Five Star Movement himself, Giuseppe Conte, renews the proposal to the government and the majority in Parliament: "If they really want to deal with security and not with slogans, let us examine and vote on the M5s bills to restore the possibility for the police and the judiciary to proceed ex officio against aggravated theft and other heinous crimes that make people's lives hell every day. Let us not look the other way."

The response of Nicola Molteni and Andrea Ostellari, undersecretaries of the Interior and Justice, respectively, in the Carroccio quota, was prompt: 'The League is working to introduce regulations capable of preventing and repressing all kinds of criminal phenomena. The security decree, launched by the government, was only the first step. Others will follow. From the procedural protection for those who defend themselves and defend decent people, to the League's proposal on the ex officio prosecution of the most heinous crimes, such as theft with dexterity".