Why Naples is experiencing a crime wave - The Economist (blog)

NAPLES has seen a rash of gangland killings in recent weeks. In the 11 days between May 25th and June 4th, eight people were shot dead in the city and its surrounding province. Italy’s Campania region is home to the Camorra, the country’s oldest organised-crime syndicate whose depredations were chronicled in Roberto Saviano’s global best-seller, “Gomorrah”, and the film and television series that were based on it. It is widely expected that most, and probably all, of the killings will turn out to be the work of mobsters. The authorities, who had earlier deployed the army to the area to free up police resources, have increased the number of patrol cars on duty. The prefect—the central government’s representative in the province of Naples—has chaired an emergency meeting to discuss other counter-measures. What lies behind the latest upsurge in violence?

Unlike Italy’s other two big mafias, Sicily’s Cosa Nostra and the ’Ndrangheta of Calabria, the Camorra is not a hierarchical secret criminal society. Despite the name used for it by insiders—O’sistema (the System)—it is a loose collection of gangs constantly jostling for control over territory and the narcotics trafficking that accounts for much of the Camorra’s considerable wealth. Turf wars have thus always been common.

Much of the recent violence, however, has been laid at the door of the Camorra’s so-called “baby gangs”: crews with members as young as 12 and at least one alleged “boss” aged 16. The son of an imprisoned “godfather”, he was arrested on May 24th, accused of shooting dead two of his older subordinates last year when he was only 15 years old. His story is illustrative. Paradoxically, the spread of these recklessly violent bands is a consequence of successful policing: many of the city’s most powerful mobsters, like the teenage boss’s father, have been jailed. The role of the “baby gangs” is to keep a grip on the territory their respective older bosses consider is theirs. Hence, the prevalence of the stesa technique, intended to bring about the visible submission of the local population: the young gangsters burst into a square or street firing mostly in the air and sending bystanders running for cover or diving to the ground.

Policing can only do so much. After a series of intimidatory raids in a particularly Camorra-ridden part of central Naples, the authorities ordered zero-tolerance measures. They included roadblocks and searches of houses known to be used by the local gangs. But police in the city often run into obstruction from local people and the stese usually return when the extra patrols are ordered out. Some Neapolitans defend the Camorra as the most reliable available source of jobs. Juvenile unemployment in Naples and the surrounding region of Campania is among the highest in Europe. For many young people, especially those without qualifications, gangland offers a tempting path to riches. In reality it often leads to incarceration or death.

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