In recent months, Italy has been engaged in an intense public debate over youth violence. Media outlets and commentators routinely invoke expressions such as “baby gangs,” “maranza,” or “second generations” to describe a series of violent and predatory behaviors committed largely by groups of young people in urban areas. For an American audience, the structure of this debate may sound familiar: it echoes long-standing discussions in the United States about public safety, social inequality, identity, and accountability.
What is distinctive in the Italian case is not the phenomenon itself, but the way it is framed. Much of the discussion revolves around language rather than governance. Labels replace analysis, and moral narratives substitute for institutional clarity.
A significant portion of Italian media coverage explains youth violence primarily through social and identity-based factors. Violent behavior is often portrayed as the outcome of marginalization, exclusion, or a “denied identity,” particularly in relation to young people born or raised in Italy to immigrant parents. Social factors undoubtedly exist, but the problem begins when explanation quietly turns into justification. In a constitutional system governed by the rule of law, violence cannot be reinterpreted as a culturally understandable response to frustration. Legal responsibility does not fluctuate with identity. Rules precede belonging, not the other way around.
Another recurrent argument insists that “baby gangs” do not exist as a legal category, emphasizing that the term is journalistic rather than juridical. From a technical standpoint, this is accurate. From a policy standpoint, it is irrelevant. The law does not need a media label in order to intervene. Whether violence is committed by organized groups or informal clusters of individuals, the conduct remains unlawful and socially disruptive. Focusing on semantics becomes a convenient way to avoid making difficult institutional choices.
At the heart of the Italian debate lies a deeper misunderstanding of integration itself. Integration is frequently treated as an emotional process, a sense of belonging that will naturally emerge if society is sufficiently inclusive. From a legal perspective, this view is unsustainable. Integration is not a feeling; it is a condition. It is demonstrated over time through conduct: respect for the law, genuine participation in education, recognition of public authority, and the absence of violent or predatory behavior. When these elements are missing, integration has not stalled—it has failed.
This misunderstanding also affects the discussion around citizenship. Some argue that easier access to citizenship would resolve the crisis by reinforcing identity and inclusion. For readers in the United States, this reasoning may resonate, but it rests on a flawed premise. Citizenship is not a psychological remedy. In any serious legal system, it represents the culmination of a successful process of integration, not a shortcut to it. Granting full membership without prior accountability risks producing rights detached from responsibility.
At the opposite extreme, other narratives frame youth violence as a form of siege, directly associating criminal behavior with immigration background. This approach is equally misguided. It replaces individual responsibility with collective suspicion and undermines the very principles of equal treatment and rule of law that democratic systems claim to defend. The issue is not origin. The issue is failure to integrate within a shared legal framework.
It is within this polarized landscape that the paradigm known as “Integration or ReImmigration” should be understood. This approach is not ideological, nor is it rhetorical. It is a governance framework rooted in conditionality, a concept deeply familiar to both European and American legal traditions. Residence within a political community is not neutral. It is based on compliance with basic rules of coexistence. When integration succeeds, stability follows. When it fails repeatedly and structurally, the State must retain the authority to act.
Under this paradigm, integration ceases to be an abstract aspiration and becomes a verifiable process. Educational pathways, alternative measures for minors, and social programs are no longer symbolic gestures designed to signal inclusion. They become instruments through which adherence to the social contract is measured. Conversely, ReImmigration is not conceived as moral punishment, but as the legal consequence of unmet conditions, applied with procedural safeguards and proportionality.
Crucially, this framework avoids both sociological absolution and ethnic stigmatization. It targets conduct, not identity. In doing so, it restores coherence to public policy by reconnecting security and integration. Public safety becomes the precondition for integration, and integration, when genuine, becomes the foundation of long-term social stability.
From this perspective, the phenomenon currently discussed in Italy under vague labels does not need to be denied or dramatized. It needs to be governed. And what can be governed can, ultimately, be resolved.
Fabio Loscerbo
Attorney at Law
Registered Lobbyist — EU Transparency Register
ID 280782895721-36
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