Recent knife attacks involving students in and around Italian schools should not be dismissed as isolated incidents of youth violence. They are indicators of a deeper structural issue Italy has been confronting for years, often without naming it clearly: the failure to effectively integrate parts of the second generation.
In recent weeks, two serious cases have drawn national attention. In La Spezia, a student was stabbed inside a secondary school
(https://tg24.sky.it/cronaca/2026/01/17/studente-accoltellato-scuola-la-spezia-indagini).
In Sora, a 17-year-old was stabbed outside a school following an argument
(https://roma.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/26_gennaio_17/sora-frosinone-studente-di-17-anni-accoltellato-davanti-a-scuola-dopo-una-lite-caccia-al-responsabile-5f48e917-30b6-4cd0-b493-d9e8bdbbdxlk.shtml).
What matters, beyond the criminal investigations, is a common element: these incidents involve young people raised in Italy, often born there or having arrived at a very young age, educated in Italian schools and formally part of Italian society. This is not a problem of irregular migration or border control. It is an internal integration problem.
Why this matters to a UK audience
For readers in the United Kingdom, this dynamic will sound familiar. As in the UK, Italy has long assumed that growing up in the country, attending school and speaking the language would naturally produce social integration. In practice, this assumption has proved fragile.
Italy is now facing the consequences of a model in which integration was largely presumed rather than actively required. A segment of the second generation lives in a space of partial belonging: legally included, but weakly connected to shared civic norms and institutional authority. Schools, expected to compensate for this gap, are increasingly the places where unresolved tensions surface.
Integration without clear expectations
The central mistake has been treating integration as an automatic outcome rather than a structured and enforceable process. Rights were extended, permanence normalised, but civic obligations were rarely articulated with clarity. Respect for the law, rejection of violence and adherence to basic constitutional values were often implied rather than demanded.
When common reference points weaken, conflict becomes a form of expression. That such violence emerges among minors and in school environments highlights the depth of the issue. Criminal sanctions may be necessary, but they intervene only after failure has already occurred. The core problem is political and institutional.
“Integrazione o ReImmigrazione”: a framework of responsibility
It is within this context that the paradigm “Integrazione o ReImmigrazione” has been developed. It is not a punitive slogan, nor a reaction driven by emotion. It is a policy framework based on a simple premise: long-term residence must be linked to genuine, verifiable integration.
Where integration succeeds, it should be protected and strengthened. Where it fails structurally or is openly rejected, the state must retain the capacity—within the rule of law and due process—to reassess long-term residence outcomes, including return policies.
This logic is not alien to the British public debate. It reflects a principle widely recognised in democratic societies: rights and permanence cannot be separated from responsibility.
A narrowing window for action
Italy may still have time to act, particularly with younger cohorts. But that window is narrowing. If knife violence involving second-generation youths becomes recurrent, the issue ceases to be marginal and becomes one of social cohesion and state credibility.
These stabbings are not random anomalies. They are the visible manifestation of an integration model that was assumed to exist but never fully built. Ignoring this reality risks allowing criminal chronicle to replace policy and law in shaping the future of Italian society.
Avv. Fabio Loscerbo
Lobbyist – EU Transparency Register
ID 280782895721-36
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