A few weeks ago president of the Juvenile Court of Milan, a very long experience in juvenile justice as a judge, Paola Ortolanhe’s seen a lot when it comes to violent kids. It is surprising, but not too much, that even very serious cases such as that of Trescore Balneario can occur. We asked her what tools are available when a child commits such serious acts under the attributable age.
From those who are called to legislate, there is already talk of new rules and penalties to be tightened, but you are starting to analyze the problem from another point.
Dr. Ortolan, what are the tools in the hands of the institutions when such a serious thing happens at the hands of a thirteen-year-old who is not yet old enough to be tried?
«Technically, a procedure is implemented to control the responsibility of the parents or with an administrative provision against the children, so that an intervention can be structured, which is not criminal but educational: the parents of the boy who stabbed the teacher gave consent to the educational community and he was taken there, but then for it to remain there and for there to be a project in which the judicial authority also intervenes, either a procedure for limiting parental responsibility must be opened, therefore with the preparation of a community placement outside family, or with an administrative provision that controls it: measures are therefore applied that are not criminal but educational, which in my opinion at this age makes much more sense.”
There was already a bill in Parliament that proposed lowering the attributable age from 14 to 13, would that make sense?
«I am against the reduction: 12-13 years are an age in which there is still a lot to train, we also have to ask ourselves if there is really awareness of what is being done. In England they have had a much bigger knife problem than ours for years and they certainly haven’t solved it with the attributable age that has always been set at 10 years. In Italy, criminal responsibility begins at 14 years old, because that is considered the age at which, at the level of psychological-developmental maturation, the ability to understand the meaning of one’s own gestures begins, so much so that, even after that, one of the causes of non-punishability is immaturity. But for it to mature, it would be necessary to act in educational terms much earlier: we must not forget that a lot in terms of prevention and education is played out in nursery school age or even earlier.”
Where to start from then?
«From the fact that we must understand where this anger and this unawareness of one’s ability to act comes from, when such serious violence is unleashed among very young people. And they start, in my experience, from early childhood: the kids we meet in the Juvenile Court have almost all been children, I say this from experience, left to grow up from a very young age without a guide, without a rein. Afterwards it is no wonder that at 11 -13 years old they are completely without boundaries. If you haven’t created the ground before, when you come up against a rule for the first time, with a social limit, which can come from outside, from the school that sets limits on you, from a boy or girl who rejects you, you are not equipped to manage that limit. It’s something you learn starting from everyday education, as a child, with which a parent dictates the rules of civilized living: “You don’t run up the stairs”, “You don’t eat with your hands”. But we see them in the corridors of the Court: it is normal for a child to be a child, maybe he runs, maybe he makes noise. What we almost never see is a parent who intervenes to explain that noise is disturbing in a workplace.”
Is that where prevention begins?
«We must start working on relationship education and above all on the words to give to one’s emotions not in middle school but in nursery school. And then we need to support families, who are often too alone, and give children opportunities for educational aggregation, because if from a certain age they are too alone, they spend their time on the streets doing silly things or live hooked on social media and at the mercy of the Internet.”
Do you have little faith in the saving function of criminal repression in which society seems to believe a lot?
«There is nothing redeeming, unfortunately, especially in cases where the problem has roots in the formation of the person, we certainly don’t stop for fear of a more serious punishment: this applies to these acts of children as well as to cases of femicide and domestic violence. If you don’t also work on awareness of relationships and their quality, you won’t get anywhere, especially with evolving kids. Could it be a coincidence that Don Mazzi, who is 96 years old, has been reporting a critical issue at the middle school level for 40 years?”.
England has just allocated 320 million pounds for targeted prevention interventions on children at the first sign of a knife in their pocket, is this the way forward?
«From what I read in the newspapers, the boy who hit at school had not shown serious signs of particular problems before, he was not one of those already reported to the services. Even more so, this makes us think of the need for primary educational prevention covering everyone, not just those who already have a problem, because at that point it is already late, we need to get there much earlier.”
What would you feel like saying to a parent who is worried about pre-adolescence?
«That there is a theme of parental responsibility, the concept of no’s that help them grow is still valid but it is practiced on a social level less and less: when we talk about giving limits to growing children we don’t mean giving gratuitous limits, but giving education a perspective of values to be transmitted, which then means having an emotionally warm educational relationship with the children, which however requires knowing how to train within the limits, which sooner or later life from outside will place on everyone: children who grow up omnipotent sooner or later they will come across some no’s from others that they won’t be able to handle.”
There are those who ask to make the rule prohibiting carrying sidearms more incisive. Would this help?
“I’m afraid not: carrying a knife is already a crime, the problem is that the kids who carry it often don’t even know it because no one has ever told them.”
