The government’s new decree, known as the Caivano Decree, outlines new measures to help reduce juvenile crime. It is named after the town in which two young cousins were allegedly gang raped.
The State is standing up and putting itself out there with its Caivano Decree cracking down on youth crime, Premier Giorgia Meloni told a press conference
“I wanted to be here because I think that the work we have brought to the cabinet today is made up of important regulations on some matters where in the past the State preferred to deal with something else. It gave the signal that on some issues it was better not to enter and stand up and take responsibility because it was dangerous”, she said.
“I think today’s is a sign of a State that decides to stand up and get into complex and difficult matters”.
What are the measures in the Caivano Decree?
The government’s Caivano Decree does not contain repressive but preventive measures, Meloni said. She also said the government had earmarked an initial €30million to clean up the town near Naples, but “more resources will arrive”.
It passes several new measures to crack down on juvenile delinquency and raise parental responsibility for keeping their children in school and off the mafia and drug-ridden streets.
If other measures are needed to supplement the youth crime package contained in the government’s Caivano Decree “then we’ll go on,” Meloni added.
Meloni also said that the government had focused resources on the measures with the highest impact.
In Italy, schooling is compulsory from six to 16 and this must be guaranteed, she stressed.
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio added that parents’ authority over their children will be lifted if they are linked to mafia or drugs gangs.
“A report by a prosecutor to the juvenile prosecutor that a child is involved in a mafia-type criminal association or for drug trafficking, not necessarily as the perpetrator of the crime, may be the beginning for the loss of parental authority,” he said.
Cleaning up Caivano
Work to clean up and redevelop the mafia and drugs youth crime town of Caivano near Naples will take years but the State will be there for the duration, Meloni said.
“The work to redevelop Caivano will last a few years with a regular government presence. I told the ministers that each of them must go and bring their ‘bricks’,” she told a press conference.
“We are sending a commissioner who can talk to all the actors and together they will do a job that will last a long time”.
The government’s ‘Caivano model’ will be valid for other areas dogged by mafia, drugs and teen gangs, Cabinet Secretary Alfredo Mantovano told the press conference.
“The Caivano decree takes its cue from the presence of the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and other ministers a week ago in that place after the terrible episode that shocked Italy. It intends to identify a model of intervention that will apply immediately to Caivano and then, when conditions are right, to other degraded areas in the country,” he said.
“It is a module that takes into consideration not only the scourge of juvenile crime, but also the offer of something positive and alternative to the street, to drug dealing.
“Measures largely urged by magistrates and police forces that we met there, from Don (Fabrizio) Patriciello (an anti-drugs priest) to others”.
