italian police

civil liberties? -
what civil liberties?

At first sight, Italy appears to have such an overmanned and overgunned police force that you wonder if Italians have ever heard of civil liberties. At times it feels like you're under martial law. They still have national service here so the streets are full of young soldiers and sailors, creating a vague atmosphere of fascist oppression.

                                              

The police, the firemen and of course the traffic wardens all wear unnecessarily elaborate brocaded uniforms, usually with those high-crowned shiny-peaked 'Nazi hats' which eastern Europeans are so fond of. All the police carry guns, which, as an Englishman in search of the beauties of Rome, I find rather ugly, a bit scary, and indeed, offensive.

On top of all this, in addition to the normal police, they also have something here called the 'Carabiniere' who are a kind of military wing of the police force, and they too are much in evidence on the streets.

Carabiniere stand around big cities like Rome all day, in very flashy uniforms with a trademark white diagonal leather sash across their breasts and a huge gold motif on their hats, brandishing machine guns for goodness sake! To be fair, Carabiniere are often pretty nice guys when you get to know them (there are Carabiniere girls as well, so it's not an excusively male macho trip as you might suppose).

Over the centuries, Carabiniere have carefully nurtured their image as heroes of the people of almost folk proportions, and there's a wide range of promotional merchandise such as calendars, pens, posters and toys which they distribute, much of it free. It's almost a cult. There is even a degree of self-ridicule among the Carabiniere ranks, as if they know that really they are just tin soldiers, with more glam than the police but less real power than the army. They're okay really - I'm not denying that they are well trained, conscientious guys who do certainly and effectively catch criminals. It's just that it's a funny system which Romebuddy will never really understand.

Beginning in 2000, the subway train network in Rome is also now patrolled by a private commercial force of security guards dressed in a very macho-looking navy-blue combat uniform and armed with automatic pistols. There's at least one on every station, even at the tiny outlying stations in Rome's suburbia, and a small army of them at Termini. Goodness knows where they dug these mercenaries up from, or what the legal position would be if one of these little glory-boys in blue actually shot and killed someone in a station, and for what? - Fare-dodging? Nose-picking? Wearing a loud-coloured shirt? Being in possession of thick lips and curly black hair? (Italians are not comfortable around black people, and the older generation can be archaically intolerant of such).
I saw one of these new railway cops drop his mobile phone on the floor the other day - Hardly a demonstration of the dexterity and reflexes of a finely-trained soldier of the law - How much less clumsy would he be with his gun?

Certainly there is a lot of very dodgy riff-raff on Rome's subway which needs policing better, but using armed forces to do it creates an unsettling atmosphere for everybody, and, far from the Dolce Vita dream of Rome as a welcoming cosmopolitan melting pot in the way that Paris is, Rome now looks increasingly like a war-zone under curfew, a place where visitors from overseas had better watch their step, or else...

I also object to being asked, from time to time, in Italy, for something called 'my ID'. I do not have any 'ID'. I was born a free man in a free country (England), I am clearly adult in appearance, not a fourteen year old trying to buy whisky, and I refuse to carry around some insulting piece of cardboard with my photograph on it just to satisfy some officious concierge, soldier or policeman that I am who I say I am. I am a member of the European Economic Community and an Englishman and my word should be good enough for them.

Italians themselves would do well to follow my example and slough off this demeaning bureaucratic control and nonsense that they suffer under from fascistic government. I have been told that 'tis but a simple matter to apply for an ID card and that is only voluntary. Then voluntary shall it remain - I shall not apply for one. It is a matter of principle. Let the Italian bureaucrats and police do some work for a change and get off their arses and chase the paper trail of my identity back through their own wasteful bureacratic jungle to my national insurance number in England, that should be their job, instead of standing there with their glittering uniforms and loosely holstered guns and demanding that I show them some rubbishpy piece of paper to prove I am not a liar, an enemy of the state, or a non-person. That is what it amounts to. It is a fascist mentality here. But I was born free, and I will not compromise that.

It is not armed police I object to, nor the police's freedom to exercise their own discretion in drawing arms on a criminal or potentially violent suspect. Rather, it is the sheer number of armed law-enforcers and servicemen in Italy that alarms me, and the opaque, yet many tentacled, obstructive and often notoriously, historically corrupt or compromised Italian government (and even civilian) bureaucracy which works in brotherly tandem with this gargantuan armed force.

All the mechanisms for totalitarian state control are still in place in Italy. It would take only a national emergency, strong parliamentary split or shifting leadership allegiances on the world stage or the encroaching border of a warzone to bring Italian citizens under an iron fist overnight. It happened before, with Mussolini and Hitler in the 1930s, and Italians now laugh and say it couldn't happen again. But let us not forget that Italy was not Nazi occupied by German military conquest, as was France - Italy was led into Nazism early, willingly, with her eyes wide open. It was America and England who eventually liberated her from the temporary error, and any Italian today who doubts this should take the short drive out of Rome one Sunday afternoon to visit the Allied Forces war cemeteries at Anzio, and while regarding the row upon row of bone-white gravestones, consider the cost in blood that was paid by strangers and foreigners on their behalf to purchase the democratic freedom of Italians and Europeans today, a freedom still so blurred and misunderstood in Italy that the streets of Rome still crawl completely unnecessarily with armed uniforms, and every Italian citizen, like a cowed, whipped dog, carries around his or her 'ID', or some related sheaf of dog-eared papers always at the ready for their inefficient and bullying gun-toting policemen to examine on demand.

In England, if you are stopped by police when driving a car and do not happen to have your car ownership or motor insurance papers with you, you are given five days to present them for inspection at a local police station of your nomination. But in Italy, if you do not have your driver's papers with you when stopped, you are given an instant, non-contestable hefty cash fine by the police officers, even if you are only a mile or less from home. See what I mean?

The Permesso di Soggiorno (a permit for foreigners, including EEC nationals) is also handled by the police department (and handled inefficiently), which has the unpleasant effect of making harmless, law-abiding visitors like you and I feel like some sort of criminal scum. It is even part of the Traffic Warden's duties to call on immigrants and long-term visitors to Italy at their houses and track them down if they are not found at home where they are expected to be.

Italian drivers (particularly in Rome) are incredibly dangerous and take no notice of the few safe driving laws that there are. Every day my life here is at risk from dangerous drivers,and the roads are lined with bunches of flowers in remembrance of people who have died in road accidents. However, traffic cops do little more than sit basking at the side of the road wearing leather jackets, sunglasses and guns, trying to look like Starsky and Hutch, only randomly pulling in the odd motorist just to keep their report-books up to quota. Click here for more about driving in Italy.

We at Romebuddy would prefer to see the immigration administration handled properly by a specially dedicated division of the Civil Service, and the police given wholly over to the business of actually catching criminals on the street (in particular, dangerous drivers - which is almost everybody) instead of just playing at it. In England we tend to regard our traffic cops and traffic wardens as tedious, tiresome and pedantic, yet I would dearly love to see the kind of near-zero tolerance our British traffic bobbies specialise in adopted here in Rome. Furthermore, one can only assume that the Italian police are just as ineffectual in other areas of law enforcement as they are at road-traffic management.

Romebuddy finds it difficult to admire or (ironically) to feel safe in a nation with such an insecurity complex as to fill its streets with so many strutting young men in uniforms carrying guns, when at the same time, all these armed 'guardians of the state' are actually doing so very little to protect me from law-breakers. I do not feel protected, but threatened. Okay, myabe we're being a little harsh, but our postion is one of a British citizen who had never, ever seen a gun in his entire life before moving to Italy, except in American TV cop shows and movies; British police do not carry guns unless on a special mission. So suddenly moving here and seeing so many armed law enforcement personnel, one wonders - Who are they pointing them at? Coming from a gun-free society, this looks likes like intimidation and subjugation of the public. It was scary at first.

But Romebuddy has mellowed since his first arrival here - And with so much Islamic terrorism around now, I'm actually quite glad now to see an armed domestic deterrent. Daniele, an Italian police officer also kindly wrote in to us and offered to explain the complex workings of the Italian police force, and some of the why's and wherefores. Here it is in his words:

"There are 5 (five)!!! police forces in italy:
1)Polizia di Stato (italian civil state police)
2)Carabinieri (italian military police)
3)Guardia di finanza (financial police)
4)Corpo Forestale dello Stato (forestal police)
5)Polizia Penitenziaria (jail officer???)
 
Polizia di Stato and Carabinieri have the same role, there are 3 big differences Carabinieri are:
1)military force,  
2)they have also jurisdiction on military crime Polizia di Stato not (they are also our peace keeping force out of italy) 
3)they are the police force that is more present on italian country... i will explain better the last point.... if you are out of a big city in suburban or in a small town the only thing you can do to have  help is to call 112 (carabinieri)  but if you are in a city you can both call 113 (Polizia) or 112.. it's the same thing! (the emergency calls in Rome arrives in one only "operative room" with sanitary personnel  (118)  and police officers. 112 -113)
 
 
in europe there are other example of civil and military police in the same country... (like france "gendarmerie" and spain "Carabineros")
In your article you said that our police is over....gunned??? why?we have only a beretta pistol (i'm not sure of the word...sorry) for normal duty and a SMG sub-machine-gun (not sure of the word also here....) that we use only on buildings defence (embassy or Government place) or in particular roads of Rome...you forgot that in U.S.  police officers have also a 12 cal. rifle and other very curious offence instruments??? 
i know that is very strange to view a police officer with a SMG in hands in a country that is not in war...but italy is a very strange country...you know Mafia?you know Brigate Rosse??italy is a peaceful country but peace have to be helped with the police forces on the ground....on honest people a Carabiniere is a bad view (a fascist or communist view) but for criminals he is a "wall" he is the person who can block him... the overgunned carabiniere (very well trained in use and non-use :-) of guns) is a deterrent (sorry: "deterrente" in italian)
 
there are also in italy some small "local" police forces like Polizia Municipale ( municipal police) that has only traffic police role
now i'm very confused cause i'm not able to write down a logic text in english....
so if you have some questions i will be very happy to answer....
one curiosity.... Carabinieri are not more important than Polizia.... it's the civil police forces that have the command of police operation in italy (like FBI in U.S.) and this cause in a democratic country a military police force can't have so much power......(golpe threat)
The last one thing is that in italy all people have to carry an ID card.... it's an old (1970 i think) law written in T.U.L.P.S. (unified law code of public security).... this law have to be written cause italy in that historic period was under terrorism attack.... and now that law is actual...don't you think?help the government to keep you safe.....in italy our counter terrorism law permit to keep people safe... and is not an oppressive government like afghanistan......
thank a lot".

Thank you Daniele, for your patient explanation.

Romebuddy.

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