Crime Patterns between Tradition and Change: A Territorial Analysis of the Italian Provinces

Abstract

Violent criminality associated with Mafia-type organizations has been crucial for the image of Italy's crime. This paper purpose is to verify whether the contemporary situation still matches that image and what has been the impact on crime of more recent factors, above all foreign immigration. Indeed, Italy has been characterized by a recent but tumultuous migratory flow, which has possibly posed difficulties for immigrants' integration. The territorial analysis, carried out on 103 Italian provinces, shows two discrete scenarios. When all the provinces are considered, serious offences such as intentional homicides, extortions, criminal conspiracies and robberies are still associated with a traditional scenario of socioeconomic backwardness and poor social capital. However, when only the Central and Northern provinces are selected, a new, non-traditional form of criminality, associated with "modern" features, such as the presence of immigrants and their problems of integration, clearly emerges.

Security Governance: Mafia Control over Ordinary Crimes

“…In the Italian context, there is some debate as to how to understand the correlation between immigration and crime. Within our models, a larger male foreign population is significantly associated with a greater intensity of ordinary criminality, thus confirming the findings of Cracolici and Uberti (2009) and Solivetti (2016). However, the association detected between immigration and ordinary crime is also dependent on the level of aggregation of the unit of analysis (provinces).…”

“…Furthermore, other studies have reported a positive relationship between immigrants and property crimes, as well as frauds (Cracolici and Uberti 2009). According to Solivetti (2016), recent foreign immigration has changed the prevalence of traditional criminality and emerged as a predictor of the frequency of crimes in the Central-Northern Italian provinces.…”

Measuring Organised Crime Presence at the Municipal Level

“…Empirical research in various fields has proxied for mafia presence by means of very different strategies, but almost always focusing only on one dimension of the mafia presence. For example, and in regard to only more recent studies, the literature has proxied for mafia presence by using murders or mafia murders (Centorrino & Ofria, 2008;Pinotti, 2015), mafia criminal associations (Barone & Narciso, 2012;Pinotti, 2015;Solivetti, 2016), city councils dissolved for mafia infiltration (Barone & Narciso, 2012;Coniglio, Celi, & Scagliusi, 2010). In a few studies, mafia presence has been measured through a mix of different variables, often selected using statistical methods (Mennella, 2009;Asmundo, 2011;Capuano & Purificato, 2012;Caglayan et al, 2017;Ganau & Rodríguez-Pose, 2017).…”