The number of murders in Italy fell from 1,916 in 1991 to 327 in 2024.
When the mafia murdered judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992, the state had already begun building up special anti-mafia police and prosecutors.
In 2023, Italy had one of the lowest homicide rates in the EU, 0.4 per 100,000 people compared with an average of almost 0.7.
From 1,916 to 327 murders
In 1991, 1,916 people were murdered in Italy. That equaled 3.4 murders per 100,000 people. This is according to an analysis by Mariarosaria Zamboi, a researcher at the Italian research institute Eurispes. It is based on figures from the Italian statistics agency Istat and the EU statistics office Eurostat.
Since then, the number has fallen year after year. There were 1,461 murders in 1992, 1,065 in 1993 and 746 in 2000. In 2024, the number was 327. That is a drop of more than 80 percent since 1991.
From 2020 to 2024, the number was just over 300 murders a year, below 0.6 per 100,000 people. In the late 1800s, nearly 2,000 people were murdered each year in Italy, or 5.9 per 100,000 people.
According to Our World in Data, Italy had one of the highest homicide rates in Europe in the early 1990s.
The mafia was behind a large share of the murders
In 1991, 37.5 percent of all murders in Italy were linked to the mafia. From 1988 to 1992, the mafia was behind about a third of the murders, according to the news agency AGI. From 2013 to 2017, the share had fallen to 9.1 percent.
In 2024, 21 people were killed in connection with organized crime, according to Istat. Of these, 19 were counted as mafia killings. In 2022 and 2023, the average was 24.5 a year. In northern Italy, there were no such killings at all in 2024.
The state responded to mafia violence
In 1991 and 1992, the state got new tools against the mafia. A special anti-mafia police unit was set up. At the same time, the country got a national anti-mafia prosecutor's office and special prosecutors' offices around the country. In 1992, the mafia murdered judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in two attacks in Sicily.
The state also protected people who testified against the mafia. Jailed mafia bosses were held under a special regime, known as 41-bis, which cut off their contact with the outside world.
According to Eurispes, the decline is largely linked to a drop in mafia violence. This is due both to the state's crackdown and to the mafia having fewer internal wars and becoming less willing to use open violence. A study of the years 1980 to 2014 found that homicide rates more than halved in the regions where the mafia had its strongest hold.
The decline shows up mainly among men. Between 1992 and 2018, the homicide rate among men fell from 4 to 0.7 per 100,000. In Calabria, the homicide rate among men fell by 62.8 percent between the periods 2010 to 2012 and 2016 to 2018, from 5.23 to 1.95 per 100,000.
Southern Italy has caught up
In 2018, the homicide rate in southern Italy was 0.83 per 100,000 people, compared with 0.43 in the rest of the country. According to Eurostat figures for 2023, the gap has almost disappeared. Northern Italy averaged 0.38, central Italy 0.43 and southern Italy 0.46.
Sicily had 0.38 murders per 100,000 people and Calabria 0.39. That is lower than in Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Tuscany and Lazio. Campania, where Naples is located, had 0.20.
Among the lowest in the EU
Italy had 0.4 murders per 100,000 people in 2023, according to Eurostat's age-standardized figures. The EU average was almost 0.7. Together with Germany and Malta, Italy was in the group with the lowest level. Sweden, Estonia and Luxembourg had 1.1, Lithuania 1.5 and Latvia 1.7.
Italy's homicide rate has also fallen faster than the EU's. From 2013 to 2015, Italy averaged 0.58 murders per 100,000 people. From 2021 to 2023, it was 0.40. That is a drop of 31 percent. The EU average fell by 19 percent over the same period.
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