Italy’s cabinet backs crack down on women pickpockets

ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s rightist government on Thursday backed a raft of measures to improve public security including potentially tougher penalties for women offenders who are pregnant or have very young children, in a move aimed at pickpockets.

The coalition League party had long called for the scrapping of a rule that prevents such women from being sent straight to jail, as part of its campaign against foreign pickpockets on public transport.

“This is a League battle that the left had blocked in the past months,” League leader and deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini wrote on Facebook.

Under the proposal, judges will be allowed to order the imprisonment of such offenders, especially if they are habitual criminals, but they won’t be bound to do so, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi told a news conference.

“This is aimed at avoiding the use of the maternity status as an exemption when committing a crime,” the minister said.

The government’s move drew strong criticism from the opposition. In a statement, the Green-Left Alliance (AVS) called it an “abuse against pregnant women and their children … who are blameless”.

The measure has been included in a government bill subject to approval by both houses of parliament before becoming law.

The bill also tackles environmental activists who block highways and streets to demand action against climate change, provoking the ire of drivers.

Such actions will be treated as crimes when they are “particularly offensive and alarming” due to the presence of more than one person and for having been organised in advance.

In addition, the government is seeking to clamp down on protests by prison inmates or inside migrant centres, and on people who use minors to beg for money.

It has also proposed tougher jail terms for people who threaten or use violence against the police.

(Reporting by Angelo Amante; Editing by William Maclean and Mark Potter)