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Racism in Italy. Official Data

Lunaria

The most reliable official source of reference is the one offered by the ODIHR/OSCE Observatory which publishes every year an international report on hate crimes, fed by official data provided by the Police and OSCAD (Observatory for Security against Discriminatory Acts) [1] and supplemented by information provided by civil society organizations. The latest published data available refer to 2018, but OSCAD has anticipated in Italy the data provided to ODIHR for 2019, although not consolidated: the number of reported hate crimes has shown an increasing trend from 472 crimes reported in 2013, to 1,111 in 2018. The non-consolidated figure for 2019 reports 969 discriminatory crimes, recording a slight reversal of the trend.

The data provided are disaggregated on the basis of three motives (or rather categories of motives): xenophobia/racism [2], sexual orientation and gender identity, disability. This breakdown shows a clear prevalence of racist and xenophobic crimes, from 194 reported in 2013, equal to 41.1% of the total, to 726 recorded in 2019, 74.9% of the total.

Source: Lunaria on Oscad/Odihr data, https://hatecrime.osce.org/italy. Note: data of 2019 are not consolidated

In the note with which OSCAD has disseminated its latest data, it is specified that “for the ethnic/racial/religious it was possible to provide an overall figure since the legislation in force on the subject does not distinguish the specific discriminatory purposes).

The available data are also divided according to the type of crime. The graph below shows that among the reported crimes of xenophobic and racist matrix in 2019in Italy, the cases of incitement to violence, desecration of graves, physical violence and disturbance of public peace were the most numerous.

Source: OSCAD/ODIHR, https://hatecrime.osce.org/italy Note: provisional data

Unfortunately, recent data are not publicly available regarding the legal proceedings initiated and the convictions adopted to prosecute this type of crime.

The other official source of reference is UNAR (National Office for Racial Discrimination). The office, established in 2003 and located at the Department of Equal Opportunities of the Presidency of the Council, has the task of ensuring the right to equal treatment and to combat discrimination by collecting reports, providing assistance to victims, carrying out research and analysis, promoting awareness raising activities, reporting to Government and Parliament. The scope of the office is different from that of OSCAD: UNAR deals with cases of discrimination that have no criminal relevance.

The last published data refer to 2018[3]. Out of 2,473 reports received during the year through the call center, associations that are part of the Unar network, web monitoring, press monitoring and other residual sources, 2,331 were deemed relevant, i.e. actual cases of discrimination.

The cases handled by the office during the year, however, also include reports received in 2017 for a total of 4,068 cases. It is on these cases that the office offers some information on the discriminatory motive. And also in this case, as in previous years, the “ethnic-racial” motive is the most recurrent (70.4%), followed by religious (10.1%) and sexual orientation (7%). Discrimination based on prejudice related to disability (5.4%), age (4.1%) and multiple prejudices (3%) are less recurrent.

In the 2018 report, details are provided on the specific motives that fall within the context of “ethnic-racial” and religious prejudice that allow to identify the groups most affected by discrimination reported to UNAR.

Source: Lunaria on Unar data

The colour of the skin is the motive in 886 cases of discrimination treated, about one third of the discrimination of “ethnic-racial” nature that the office dealt with in 2018. A fact that seems to confirm what Lunaria has long denounced, the strong return of ancient forms of biological racism that, in 2018 in particular, have returned to affect “black” people.

The above data are of an administrative nature, i.e. produced by the authorities responsible for combating discrimination and racism with monitoring and assistance to victims, complaint collection and investigation activities. Although they constitute a fundamental basis of information for the knowledge and analysis of the evolution of racism in our country, they represent only that part of discrimination and racist violence that are the subject of complaint and reporting.

As noted by ECRI (European Commission against Racism and Intolerance) in its latest Report dedicated to Italy, the main limitation that characterizes our country from the point of view of data collection is the persistent lack of a coordinated, systematic and transparent national system of data collection on discrimination and racist violence (ECRI, 2016) [4]. The data collected by UNAR (National Office against “racial” discrimination), OSCAD (Observatory for Security against discriminatory acts), in the database of the Investigation System of the Judicial Police (SDI), the Ministry of Justice and ISTAT (National Institute of Statistics), differ in fact for the purposes and methods of detection, for the time of publication, for the classification systems adopted and for the heterogeneity of the field of observation.

The official data must therefore be read taking into account the limits that characterize them. In any case, it should be noted that, in particular in the last three years, institutional commitments have multiplied to initiate greater collaboration between the various competent authorities. [5]   

[1] The data are provided by combining data from the “Investigation System – SDI” (extracted from the CED interforces) that relate to crimes with discriminatory purposes that have “regulatory coverage” (i.e. relating to “race”, ethnicity, nationality, religion and membership of national linguistic minorities), with OSCAD reports that concern discriminatory areas without specific regulatory coverage (relating to sexual orientation and gender identity). For disability, are combined the SDI data relating to the dispute of the aggravating circumstance referred to in Article. 36 Law 104/1992 with the OSCAD reports concerning the specific area of discrimination.

[2] This category includes crimes recorded in the SDI (Sistema di Indagine Interforze) database with a motive denoting prejudice against “race”/skin color, ethnicity Rome and Sinti, nationality, language and religion.

[3] See: UNAR, Report to the President of the Council of Ministers on the activity carried out and to the Parliament on the effective application of the principle of equal treatment and the effectiveness of protection mechanisms, 2018, available here: http://www.unar.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Relazione-al-Parlamento-e-al-Presidente-del-Consiglio-2018.pdf.

[4] The report is available here: https://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/ecri/Country-by-country/Italy/ITA-CbC-V-2016-019-ITA.pdf.

[5] Oscad organized between 2018 and 2019 two seminars in which it brought together Unar, the Ministry of Justice, Istat and some associations in order to exchange views and good practices on data collection methodologies. Unar has recently started the establishment of a hate speech table composed of representatives of the ministries most involved, Oscad, Istat and some national associations.