At the mercy of a security panic

In the Italian public debate, there is one issue that regularly rears its head as elections approach and which, in recent days – in various forms, with different nuances and different emphases – has dominated the front pages of newspapers, the news and our social media timelines. To put it bluntly, this issue could be categorised as a form of psychosis. And in this specific case, the most incredible form of psychosis that periodically sweeps through Italy concerns our country’s security. Generally, several factors contribute to fuelling this psychosis, many of which have little basis in reality. An indispensable ingredient, of course, is that kindly provided, with every cycle, by the opposition, which specialises in turning every news story into a national emergency. A further ingredient, of course, is the media’s unstoppable rush to sensationalise every news story that captures the public’s attention, in the knowledge that nothing attracts more viewers on television – at least during the ‘protected’ viewing hours – than a crime story.

Usually, faced with an opposition that lumps everything together and a media system that turns every misfortune into a statistical trend, one might reasonably expect to find a governing elite keen to restore balance to the ‘emotions industry’ through the power of reality. But every now and then, as is happening with this government, we fall into a diabolical cycle that works roughly like this: for years we have accustomed our voters to judging the country’s security on the basis of perceptions rather than reality, and now that the perception of insecurity has once again become very high – due to propaganda from the left-wing opposition but also because of competition from the right – we can do nothing but raise our voices and promise a break with our own previous actions. The result is the psychosis we are witnessing today. The right, in response to the demand for security, legitimises a ‘Wild West’ approach, capitalising, for example, on the Roggero case: if we cannot defend you, do not worry – defend yourselves; that is fine by us.

The left, in response to security concerns, describes trends of dubious substance that would make Italy an increasingly unsafe country and, whenever it has the chance, portrays the police as agents of chaos, disorder and insecurity. But when politics appeals to voters’ emotions rather than reality, one may find oneself faced with an incredible number of suppressed truths. The security hysteria – which helps to fuel the image of an unsafe country even when it is not – is a hysteria that allows the dictatorship of resentment to prevail and marginalises the hard facts. If we were to tell you, looking at just the last ten years, that in 2015 there were 2,687,249 crimes committed and that in 2025 there were 2,357,105, you’d think we were mad. If we told you that there were 475 murders in 2015 and 286 in 2025, you’d think we were out of our minds. If we told you that 153,842 migrants arrived by sea in 2015 and that in 2025 the figure was 66,316 – after standing at 158,000 in 2023 – you’d think we’d lost our minds. If we were then to tell you that Italy, across an endless array of crimes, has for years been considered one of the safest countries in Europe, you would probably laugh (in the latest available comparison, for the year 2024, Italy’s murder rate stands at 0.57 victims per 100,000 inhabitants, compared with a European average of 0.91: this is lower than that of Spain, Germany and France, and is the lowest among the major European countries). And if we were to tell you, finally, that when it comes to public order issues, the only real figure bucking the trend compared with the past concerns the number of police officers injured during street demonstrations – which rose from 120 cases in 2023 to 273 cases in 2024, and up to 459 cases in 2025 – you would say: ‘Excuse me, but where do you live?’ And indeed, when it comes to feelings of insecurity, reality – as reflected in the figures – is on one side, and perception on the other. Censis 2025: 75.8 per cent of Italians believe that walking the streets has become more dangerous over the last five years.

The security hysteria affects everyone, or almost everyone: the right, the left, newspapers, television, radio and news websites. But the most curious form of hysteria – albeit one that is perfectly understandable – is that concerning the government. On 5 March 2026, the Home Secretary informed the Senate that in 2025 the total number of recorded offences had fallen by 2.39 per cent compared with 2024, he pointed out that this figure is 13 per cent lower than in 2015, and noted that, compared with 2024, intentional homicides had fallen by 14.88 per cent, reported sexual assaults by 4.45 per cent, robberies by 3.92 per cent, and thefts by 6.11 per cent. And yet, the main instigator of this hysteria is none other than the centre-right, which has positive figures to point to – including on the number of arrivals – but which finds itself facing an enemy, or rather a monster, that it has helped to fuel, and which, systematically, before every election campaign, turns perception into reality and truth into fiction. Enjoy the hysteria, everyone.