The date of birth marked on his identity card is 2007but the experience of petty crime does not coincide with the carefree attitude that a 17 year old teenager should have. The minor in question is the author of the two thousand euro theft clerk (on the night between Sunday 30 June and Monday 1 July) in a shoe shop in San Vittore Olona. Now he is not under the summer sun chatting about this and that with other kids, but in the First Reception Center of the Beccaria juvenile prison in Milan. While his accomplice, a 15-year-old, was reported at large.
His unscrupulous behavior was also striking: that evening the 17-year-old even resisted the police. And he did not express any concern about the consequences of the crime committed.
Wrong Roads
Second generation immigrant raised in a family of foreign origin but born in Italy. A family of honest workers. Not a boy left adrift. But a young man who chose the wrong path, not necessarily a one-way street. Its history is not isolated to the Legnano area and brings attention back to the phenomenon of youth degradation. We are therefore talking about minors who, almost out of boredom or for fun, find themselves in risky situations by committing their first thefts, emulating behaviors from criminal movies and perhaps getting close to drugs and alcohol.
A phenomenon that is now well known: more pronounced in Milan, but present even if in a more marginal way here in the province. Also for this reason the attention should not be lowered especially since the fear for the Police is to see these wrong behaviors evolve into forms of organized crime. And this is where the reflections of psychologist Angelo Aparo come back referent of the “Transgression Group” who on the sidelines of a meeting held at theMelzi Institute of Legnano he explained: «The degradation of youth is an objective fact and can be traced back to a mismanagement of immigration by a society incapable of integrating children born in Italy to foreign parents. This is a society that is generally incapable of providing answers to young people in search of their identity during adolescence.». Aparo in his analyses calls into question all institutional and social realities as an integral part of a community that must take responsibility. Therefore, adults today more than ever are called upon to take care of the education of new generations by providing answers to the issues of reception and education with the awareness of how harmful intolerance is. Therefore, it seems necessary a collective awareness of this discomfort that actually affects the entire youth world. A long process to be realizedthere is no doubt, but which can certainly find fertile ground in the school environment: a place of prevention, emotional and cultural growth.
Youth degradation, psychologist Aparo in Legnano: «Society does not know how to integrate the children of immigrants»
