In yet another example of the massive foreign crime wave engulfing Europe, new data shows that foreigners in Italy are vastly overrepresented in violent crimes and predatory crimes such as robbery and sexual assault.
The 2024 data shows that a significant number of arrests in Italy are targeting foreigners, making up 34.7 percent of arrests.
However, when it comes to more serious predatory crimes, the figure is much higher. For public street robberies, foreign make up 60.1 percent of suspects and for robberies in total, it is 52.3 percent. Foreigners are responsible for 61 percent of burglaries, and 69 percent of pickpocketing cases, according to new crime data analyzed by Italian newspaper Il Sole 24.
For sexual assault, foreigners are responsible for 43 percent of all such cases.
This is despite foreigners making up only a small share of the Italian population. According to the Ismu Ets report, as of Jan. 1, 2024, there were 5.7 million foreign people in Italy. Of these, 5.3 million were residents, making up 9 percent of the Italian population. This is compared to 8.2 percent in 2014.
For drug dealing, foreigners are responsible for 39 percent of cases, 24.5 percent of car thefts, 29 percent of smuggling cases, and 23.7 percent of homicides.
Italy does not track the foreign background of Italian suspects, but in recent years, a many high-profile cases have involved exactly these type of citizens.
The data is also skewed for a number of reasons. While citizens from other European countries like Austria and France are also counted as foreigners, they make up a very small percentage of foreign criminals, with suspects from Africa and North Africa even more vastly overrepresented.
Approximately 321,000 of these foreigners were illegal migrants, making up a very small share of the overall Italian population.
Italian journalist Francesco Totolo, citing this data, wrote: “Nearly 1 in 2 sexual assaults is committed by the 9% of the resident population in Italy, foreigners. Thefts, pickpocketing and robberies: over 6 out of 10 arrested are foreigners.”
Irregular immigrants — those without a valid residence document or with an expired permit — represent 5.6 percent of foreigners in Italy and are thought to have a greater impact on crime than legally resident immigrants.
One influential study on the subject (Barbagli, Colombo, 2011), which analyzed data from 1988 to 2009, found that 70 percent of crimes committed in Italy by immigrants were committed by illegal migrants.
According to Paolo Pinotti, vice-rector of Bocconi University in Milan and founder of the Clean study center on crime, this dynamic remains true today, although Interior Ministry data does not disaggregate between regular and irregular immigrants.
Pinotti suggests that if this breakdown were available, it would show that the disproportionate share of foreigners in total arrests is mainly due to illegal migrants who commit small predatory crimes for economic reasons, or even crimes such as sexual violence, https://rmx.news/crime/milan-is-out-of-control-due-to-migrant-crime-ita…
“Foreigners who are regularly present in the territory, however, they have a propensity for crime in line with that of Italians,” he stated.
The province with the greatest weight of foreigners in the total number of arrestees is Prato (62 percent), a figure nearly double the national average. This is partially explained by the high percentage (around 25 percent) of foreign residents in the Tuscan province.
Other areas with high percentages include the large metropolitan areas of Milan (55.8 percent) and Florence (56 percent), where street crimes like thefts and robberies have multiplied. Border territories also show high figures: Imperia (54.8 percent), Bolzano (54.7 percent), Trieste (51.5 percent), and Gorizia (48.8 percent).
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