It seems that Salerno has suddenly become an unsafe city. The episode of the baby gang in Piazza della Libertà, made public by the president of the Regional Council a week after the incident, is serious but would not have the contours of other events that occurred in the past in the capital and which also involved minors. The protagonists have all been identified. This weekend the Carabinieri mobile station patrolled Piazza della Libertà in Salerno, while other police patrols carried out the usual checks in the nightlife area and obviously in the rest of the city of Salerno. Things were already planned well before we became aware of the episode that happened last week, which involved minors who attacked one of their peers. The issue of security is more comprehensive, it concerns video surveillance and the forces involved in the area, especially at night. The recent thefts or attempted thefts that occurred against commercial activities or credit institutions in the eastern area of Salerno have brought the problem back again. Yet, the number of thefts, in homes and shops, has decreased compared to previous years, but citizens’ perception is different. The question is: how is the capital city controlled during the night? The territory is divided into 5 quadrants and is patrolled by the police and carabinieri, patrolling recently reinforced with men from the crime prevention department. At night, however, no municipal police officers operate. According to sources from the municipal police itself, the body has 187 units, 85 are over the age of 60 and around 67 70/80 units will retire. There will be a competition for permanent hires but with part-time contracts and this will not solve the problem. At each shift, from 7 am to around midnight, 4-5 patrols operate, which have to deal with many things: from road accidents, to street vendors, to counterfeiting, to TSOs and more. But if a road accident occurs at night in the municipal area, including the ring road, the police or carabinieri must intervene. In short, we need more municipal police officers and we need to intensify video surveillance, which in Piazza della Libertà, for example, does not cover the entire area.
