Viterbo – Report by Francesco Mattioli
Viterbo – We receive and publish – Since 2012 there has been a large page on the website of the municipality of Viterbo, entitled “Safe and friendly city”, where we read that “You can contact this desk to report a danger, a threat, a risk situation, a damage, a crime that occurs in the city. You can get information, assistance, help.
Viterbo – Shrine
This desk is also an observatory that helps the local administration and the police force to better understand citizens’ safety problems, designing intervention and prevention programs. Toll-free number: 800328823″.
And then, it continues with a whole series of advice, invitations and considerations on safety in Viterbo.
I find it hard to believe that the citizens know anything about it. I’m struggling because we’ve been talking about neighborhood surveillance for a long time and nothing has yet happened about it. I struggle because there is the idea that security is only a police matter, that it concerns a fight between thugs at the Shrine and not an obstacle to free pedestrian circulation, architectural barriers or the hygienic conditions of the streets.
I struggle, because people prefer to present their reports in the media in local newspapers rather than go and complain to institutional managers. On the other hand, there is some reason, because if the fact goes to the newspapers someone will take action, if it remains an ordinary relationship between citizen and municipality the issue gets lost in the meanders of an inattentive bureaucracy.
Yet, that Help Desk was born from the first and only investigation conducted with scientific methods in Viterbo (and not only) on a phenomenon, that of “perceived” security, which is of fundamental importance for correct territorial management of public order.
Perhaps that help desk should be revitalized, perhaps perfected, but made known to the population and taken into consideration by the interested institutional subjects, including the media, for a city situation which, in any case, has changed since 2012, in facts and in the perception of local public opinion.
Francesco Mattioli
May 19, 2024
