Crimes in feudal society and in bourgeois society
It has happened several times that, in certain periods, the trend of some crimes has been divergent: sometimes because their frequency has varied with different speeds, sometimes because it has increased for some and decreased for others. In many cases, scholars have made this finding by comparing homicide (in decline) and theft (on the rise). Thus, for example, at the end of the XNUMXth century, analyzing the statistics of some countries, one of the leading European experts, Enrico Ferri, thought he could see the signs of a profound transformation of criminal activity, with the substitution of "violence by fraud, to the medieval crime against people the bourgeois crime against property”. Eighty years later, a great historian, Lawrence Stone, analyzing the very long-term changes in the homicide rate in England, observed that the continuous decrease in this crime and the growth in thefts was attributable to the passage from the values of feudal society to those of bourgeois society. In the first, violent crimes against people dominated, because it was characterized by membership, hierarchy and a strong sense of honor. In the second, those against property are more frequent because society is based on money and market relations.
The data on the homicide rate (in this case, for reasons of comparability, both committed and attempted) and on the thefts in Italy, from 1881 to 1941, suggest that these analyzes were not without foundation. Figure 1 shows that, despite undergoing some fluctuations (the strongest of which, with a marked increase, in the first post-war period) the frequency of homicides continued to decrease throughout the period. On the other hand, that of thefts had an opposite trend and experienced a continuous increase, even though it too went through fluctuations. Unfortunately, however, while we are certain that the data of the first curve are completely reliable (there is no significant difference between the homicides committed and those recorded), we are not able to say the same about those of the second, for the good reason that , until the mid-XNUMXs, we are unable to estimate the share of the unclear number of property crimes and we do not know whether it has changed over time.
Italy of the last fifty years
It is therefore good to focus our attention on the last half century. Also in Italy, as in other Western countries, in this period there was first a growth and then a decrease in the frequency of many crimes. In Italy, growth began in 1969, eight years later than in the United States, and was impetuous until 1991. Curiously, even in Italy, as in other western countries, this was the year of the peak. Figure 2 shows how the increase, in the 1969-1991 phase, was stronger for robberies, a little less for homicides and even less for thefts.
The decrease started in 1992, but the speed varied according to the crimes. It was strong and continuous for the murders, weaker and more intermittent for the other two. The rate of robberies, in particular, only fell for four years, then started to rise again, to reach a new peak in 2007. Figure 2 clearly shows that today Italians have a higher level of security than in 1991 with regard to all and three crimes considered. Compared to the XNUMXs, however, they are only safer from homicides, while they run a much greater risk of being robbed and robbed than they were then.
The difference between today's situation and that of half a century ago is very strong (much stronger than in the United States or other Western countries) due to robberies, the frequency of which today is ten times greater than in the past. What's more, one of the crimes that causes the greatest fear in the population – home robberies (for which we have data since 2004) – has more than doubled in the last decade (figure 3).
So, despite never having had such a low homicide rate, Italy is today a more insecure country than it was half a century ago. And the fear that millions of Italians try to walk alone in the evening on the streets of the area in which they live is not excessive, disproportionate or unjustified with respect to the objective risks. As much research has shown, today the population of Western countries is more afraid of burglaries and robberies than homicides, because the fear of crimes depends not only on their seriousness, but also on the probability that they will occur. And in the last year, even if we limit ourselves to those reported, thefts and robberies were 3.350 times more numerous than homicides.
