This page provides information on the national frameworks to address hate crime in Italy. The information provided here should be viewed alongside data presented on Italy's hate crime report page.

Hate crime recording and data collection

Italian legislation does not provide a definition of hate crime. Hate crimes are recorded by police using the same process as for other crimes. There is no instruction or policy document to guide police in identifying and recording hate crimes.

Initial crime reports, including victim information and information about police action and legal qualification, are entered into and stored in the Sistema di Indagine (SDI, Investigation System) database. The SDI is organized according to different criminal law provisions, which are marked on every report entered into the system. For this reason, the SDI system only registers hate crime strands mentioned in the law, including ethnicity, nationality, "race", religion, or crime against national linguistic minorities. There is no specific marker for each bias motivation in the SDI, so crimes cannot be distinguished in the database according to motive. Crimes committed on discriminatory grounds other than those explicitly outlined in the law (e.g., gender identity or sexual orientation) are entered into the SDI as ordinary offences. Instead, such crimes are monitored via a separate system, and the reports are collected by the Observatory for Security against Discriminatory Acts (OSCAD).

OSCAD is an inter-agency body established in 2010 within the Department of Public Security of the Central Directorate of Criminal Police. The reports it collects, which do not replace reporting of crimes before police bodies, are sent to OSCAD by institutions, associations or private citizens, who can submit reports anonymously. OSCAD processes the received reports, and acts as a point of contact between the reporting party, the police department responsible for handling the case and the other institutions that are possibly concerned (i.e., schools, agencies, etc.). OSCAD co-operates with civil society partners, such as the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), Foundation Jewish Contemporary Documentation Center (CDEC), and the Gay Help Line to facilitate reporting of hate crimes by the communities concerned.

Not all reports collected by OSCAD are included in the SDI database. In 2011, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between OSCAD and the National Office against Racial Discrimination (UNAR) of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. On the basis of the Memorandum, UNAR and OSCAD exchange information about incidents, including hate crime cases reported to UNAR's contact centre. OSCAD also receives reports from civil society organizations (CSOs) working with victims of hate crimes. OSCAD facilitates contact between the reporting organization and the relevant police department or other institution.

At the central level, the responsibility for managing the SDI database, including hate crimes, lies with the Ministry of the Interior's Central Directorate of Criminal Police. As the SDI does not allow hate crime bias motivations to be distinguished, only aggregated data on all monitored strands of hate crime are available. This aggregate number includes hate crimes committed on the grounds of "race"/skin colour, ethnicity, origin, minority status, citizenship, language, bias against Roma and Sinti, and bias against religion. The categories of "race" and religion cannot be broken down into subcategories as the law prohibits the recording of such data.

There is no option for prosecutors to flag hate crimes in the relevant casefile management system. It is only possible to detect hate crimes by referring to a particular criminal provision and/or aggravating circumstances provision (general penalty enhancement). The Ministry of Justice is responsible for collecting criminal data registered at ordinary courts through the General Directorate for Statistics and Organizational Analysis of the Department for Judicial Organization of Staff and Services. Data relating to people under investigation for hate crimes with a request for closure or being brought to trial are dealt with by the National Statistics Institute (ISTAT).

Since 2024, Italy's Judicial Police have been mandated to transmit all reports of criminal offences, including hate crimes, electronically through a single secure channel known as the Crime Report Portal (PNDR). This system connects directly to the computerized registers of the Public Prosecutors' Offices – specifically, the Criminal Investigation Information System (SICP) and the e-Criminal Proceedings Application (APP). Along with the digitized crime reports, the PNDR transmits aggregated, confidential data concerning the person under investigation, the victim, the offence, and its circumstances. Upon receipt, the Public Prosecutor registers the report and can either confirm or amend the provisional legal classification within the SICP and APP systems.

Within these judicial IT systems, data can be searched and extracted by filtering for specific offence provisions or aggravating circumstances, such as those committed for purposes of discrimination or ethnic, national, racial or religious hatred. However, the portal does not feature dedicated flags to classify hate crimes, nor does it allow for the aggregation or filtering of discriminatory motives or non-criminal incidents. Access to these registered proceedings –including sensitive personal data – is strictly limited, accessible only by the Head of the relevant Judicial Office (who is the data holder) and their authorized personnel.

To facilitate broader analysis, the Datalake Giustizia (Datalake Justice) project serves as a centralized digital infrastructure that anonymises, integrates, and organizes data from various judicial registers and statistical databases. This allows authorized Ministry of Justice personnel to perform unified data extraction and dynamic searches via interactive dashboards. For hate crimes specifically, the platform enables relational and criminological analysis of active prosecutions, pending trials, and concluded cases, while excluding preliminary investigations to protect investigative secrecy. This system allows authorities to correlate offender and victim data, analyse geographic distribution, identify socio-demographic traits of defendants, and develop indicators to better understand the phenomenon.

Hate crime victim support

Italy offers support to victims of hate crimes both as part of its general victim support scheme and through civil society organizations (CSOs), which respond to the needs of particular targeted groups. Hate crime victims are included in the definition of a "particularly vulnerable victim" in the Italian Criminal Procedure Code.

A dedicated structure at the Ministry of Justice, the "Co-ordination Table", serves as an inter-agency co-ordination mechanism for victim support services, including public administration and CSOs. The Co-ordination Table aims to create an integrated network of country-wide and centrally co-ordinated assistance to accompany victims from first contact with the authorities and provide comprehensive protection and support, including the necessary psychosocial support and the compensation of damages.

Under Italian law, the injured party must be informed of their procedural rights, which include the right to participate in the proceedings, to file briefs and make requests, to avail themselves of legal aid, to be assisted by an interpreter, to access protective measures that may be ordered in their favour, to have their legal costs reimbursed, and to file briefs in cases where the judge must decide on a request for revocation or replacement of the precautionary measure applied to the suspect. The injured party also has the right to claim compensation in criminal proceedings for material and moral damages suffered as a result of the crime, and to access restorative justice processes at any stage and level of the proceedings, including while the sentence is being carried out.

Additionally, the National Office against Racial Discrimination (UNAR) – tasked with promoting equal treatment and addressing discrimination based on race or ethnic origin – monitors the implementation of protection measures and provides assistance to victims of discrimination in judicial and administrative proceedings. UNAR's mandate is supported by a network of Regional Anti-Discrimination Centres and CSOs, which are included in a state register of entities working to combat discrimination and promote equal treatment. There is also a state-supported web portal for transgender people that provides information on specialist health support services.

The procedure in place for conducting individual needs assessments (INA) for crime victims also addresses the bias motivation of the crime. However, the legislation does not specify who is responsible for conducting the INA. In practice, it is the judicial authority – advised by relevant experts in psychology, law and social work – that takes a decision on granting victims the status of having a "particular vulnerability". A statement of vulnerability is required from the victim and attached to the case file for each bias-motivated crime.

The entities providing general support services for crime victims include: physical and mental health care facilities; specialized facilities for minors, persons with disabilities, the elderly and adults in difficulty; shelters and safe houses; and anti-violence and victim support centres. The services offered by these entities include special protection measures (such as providing home and travel safety, relocation to a protected place and financial assistance, or allowing victim testimonies to be recorded and the use of special hearing rooms, etc.). The specific services offered is decided upon first contact with the victim.

Some police headquarters have established victim listening desks and co-operate informally with CSOs, local authorities and other criminal justice institutions. However, victim referral mechanisms in Italy are often created at the initiative of the specialized CSOs, which enter into partnerships with other support providers and criminal justice institutions (such as prosecutor's offices), bar associations, and medical service providers. These specialized services rely on public subsidies and private donations, and are not available in all regions to an equal extent. They often function without formal links to the general victim support system. There is no publicly available information about specialized support providers.

Hate crime training for police includes content on the sensitive and respectful treatment of crime victims by police. Guidelines on victims' rights have been developed for criminal justice institutions.  

Hate crime capacity building

Since 2012, training on addressing hate crimes has been a compulsory and integral part of both initial and in-service training programmes of the Italian State Police. The courses are adapted to the needs of trainees, and are also required for police to acquire a higher qualification. In 2018, two train-the-trainer seminar cycles were held at the Institute for State Police Superintendents in Spoleto. As a result, a pool of trainers specializing in preventing and combating crimes of a discriminatory nature at Educational Institutions was created to support the cascading of hate crime training. The training was repeated in 2023 to refresh participants' knowledge and, at the same time, train additional teachers.

In basic training for Carabinieri, the trainees are obliged to attend a module on human rights, which also covers hate crimes. This module is aimed at Carabinieri at all levels (Officers, Inspectors, Superintendents and Carabinieri), and is adapted accordingly. Hate crimes are also covered by university courses followed by officers and inspectors obtaining degrees in the rule of law and in security studies.

OSCAD contributes to the training of both police and Carabinieri as part of national and international training programmes. In all training courses, specific lessons are delivered on gender issues and countering discrimination offences.

The subject of discriminatory crimes is also studied in juridical disciplines (in particular, in Criminal Law) as part of the university course attended by the Ordinary Role Officers and Warrant Officers (who respectively gain a master's degree in "Law" and a degree in "Security Legal Sciences"), as well as part of the training course for Brigadieri (superintendents) and Carabinieri. The training courses for these disciplines are also part of internal competitions for career progression.

Since 2014, topics included in ODIHR's Training Against Hate Crime for Law Enforcement (TAHCLE) have been delivered to a total of about 61,300 military personnel in training courses organized by the Carabinieri.

Judges and prosecutors receive ongoing training from the Scuola Superiore della Magistratura (High School of the Judiciary), which requires them on an annual basis to attend courses selected from a range of topics related to criminal and procedural law. These courses include instruction on recognizing bias, investigating and prosecuting hate crimes, recording hate crimes, and the sensitive treatment of hate crime victims, including trauma-informed interviewing techniques.