Number of hate crimes in Italy 2021, by type

The Italian police recorded over one thousand hate crimes in 2021. 423 were classified as incitement to violence, which was the most common hate crime that occurred in Italy. Further 203 hate crimes were physical assaults, and one case was homicide. The cases recorded were hate crimes having ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, anti-Semitism as bias-motivation, as well as bias against Roma and Sinti, and people with disabilities.

Targeted groups of hate crimes

  Most of the known hate crimes were related to racism and xenophobia. In 2020, more than 800 reports concerned this bias. Among these crimes, the most frequent ones were incitement to violence, desecration of graves, physical assaults, and threats. People with disabilities were the second most targeted group.

Opinion on measures against this growing hate

  In the last years, the number of hates crimes in Italy rose. However, in a survey conducted in 2019, most of the Italians believed that the measures adopted against discrimination were effective. In October 2019, the Italian Senate voted in favor of the establishment of a special committee to combat racial hate. A survey about this Extraordinary Commission show that a large part of Italian interviewees was in favor of its establishment. The Commission was proposed by the Senator Liliana Segre, Holocaust survivor. In fact, the committee was also named “Segre Commission”.