Up to Five Years for Riot Gangs – and Parents Pay for the Damage

“Protesting is a right, devastating our cities is not.” With that line Giorgia Meloni presented the new security decree on X on Tuesday evening, hours after an extraordinary cabinet meeting at Palazzo Chigi.

The decree, proposed by Meloni together with interior minister Matteo Piantedosi, justice minister Carlo Nordio and defence minister Guido Crosetto, creates a new crime: organised violence at public demonstrations. Anyone who joins a group of at least five people during a protest and throws objects or dangerous fireworks, putting people at concrete risk, faces two to five years in prison and a fine of up to €20,000. Covered faces or injuries mean higher sentences. Organising or promoting such a group – also online – carries four to twelve years.

“Chi rompe paga e se chi rompe è un minorenne pagano i suoi genitori.”

“Whoever breaks it pays – and if whoever breaks it is a minor, the parents pay.”

— Giorgia Meloni, Italian prime minister, in a video after the cabinet meeting

Teenagers and their parents

The decree goes straight at the young rioters. According to Il Tempo, 85 percent of those detained in Milan were minors. From now on, a 14-year-old is presumed to understand what he is doing unless proven otherwise, and police can make a deferred arrest – for example on the basis of video footage. Preventive detention in crowded places is extended, and for minors it applies from the age of 16.

Parents of children who take part in certain crimes – even under-14s who cannot be prosecuted – face administrative fines of €500 to €1,000, doubled for repeat cases, unless they can show they could not have stopped it. Damage to public property can be billed directly by the prefect, while shop owners get a fast-track court order. Meloni said victims will be able to claim against the family’s assets, “even money the state may owe them”.

Milan also gets 500 extra soldiers for street patrols, ANSA reports.