From Rimini 27 mayors write to Meloni: “It’s already summer here, send police reinforcements”
From the second Italian province for crime, they ask for the permanent adaptation of the workforce: "It is a vital necessity".
RIMINI – It’s already summer on the Romagna Riviera and in Rimini, where the 2024 tourist season has already opened. And even if it’s not Caivano, it’s still the second Italian province by crime index. And to guarantee safe holidays for guests, but not only, more law enforcement officers are needed as soon as possible.
The letter asking for permanent police reinforcements at Palazzo Chigi and the Viminale came from Rimini and was signed by all 27 mayors of the province. The letter for the President of the Council of Ministers Giorgia Meloni and for the Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi, like that of last year, recalls the 27 first citizens, “is born from a proposal from the president of the Province and mayor of Rimini Jamil Sadegholvaad to ask the government”, on the one hand “an adjustment to the ordinary staffing of the police forces“. On the other hand, to “guarantee very quickly to our territory, right from the start of the summer season, the units assigned in the past to the State Police, Carabinieri, Guardia di Finanza and to the same Railway Police for specific checks in the stations”.
We need, they continue, to do “everything possible to guarantee adequate levels of safety for what is in fact a complex hospitality industry”. The primacy of the Rimini area in the creation of GDP from tourism, they conclude, has “a precise reason”: the area of the province of Rimini has always been used to guaranteeing the organization necessary to manage important numbers and can count on added value which is called the culture of hospitality. “The ability to guarantee remarkable efficiency in dimensioning essential services has always been an essential element of our tourist offer”. For this reason, “the nature of our territory would necessarily require a permanent adaptation of the Police personnel” and “an effective and common sense choice would be to make the summer garrisons and the assigned resources permanent. The area of the province of Rimini is, clearly, a vital necessity“.
The numbers justify the concerns of local administrators: the Province of Rimini places itself on the podium in the 2023 crime ranking of the Lab24-Sole24Ore, in second place after Milan , followed by Rome, with over 21,000 complaints in its curriculum – 6,200 per 100 thousand inhabitants – 2,500 more than the previous year. Thefts reign supreme, with 11,112 reports, damage, around 1,800 reports, and scams and computer fraud, 1,811 reports. A phenomenon that has become frequent in recent summers on the Riviera is that of gangs of very young people – the so-called baby gang– dedicated to thefts and attacks, on which the local and railway police forces are involved first line for their control.
by Cristiano Somaschini and Cristina Rossi