“Nine out of ten are black” says a judge. And with it “prison emptying” pushers are not punishable
Of Luca Fazzo
From the Milanese nightlife districts to the narrow streets of the center of Macerata, from the Spanish quarters of Naples to the Venetian countryside: the homo novus of crime in Italy is the drug dealer coming from abroad, the faceless and historyless pusher who sells death in the squares of the Peninsula.
Presences now known, fragments of the urban landscape. Everyone, or almost, foreigners; and of these all, or almost, illegal immigrants. From North to South, every city has its neighborhood in the hands of the "stuff" gangs, known to all. Including law enforcement.
How many are there?, Innocent Oseghale's colleagues, the Nigerian who tore Pamela Mastropietro to pieces, triggering Luca Traini's Nazi delirium? How many Maghreb or Central African "horses" are there who, like Oseghale, live solely by selling heroin, cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy, all the rubbish available in the open-air markets of the Italian suburbs? The number is incalculable, but we are certainly talking about thousands of people: all male, all young. For three ethnic groups, according to the latest ISTAT report, selling drugs ranks first among the favorite crimes: they are Albanian, Moroccans and Tunisians. But the former have the levers of large-scale traffic in their hands, while for the Arabs the real deal is retail, retail trade. And the same goes for Nigerians too, Gambians and Senegalese, who do not appear in the Istat report but instead appear in the cages of direct trials that clog up the Italian courts on a daily basis. «Out of ten drug arrests that are brought before me – says a Milanese judge – nine are black". And the morning reports with the arrests of the Volante confirm this: Only non-EU citizens end up in handcuffs for drugs.
In Milan the drug dealing areas are rigidly divided: to sell heroin in Rogoredo, in the minimarket close to the infamous "grove", they are young Arabs, they work protected by high-speed gates, they handle a few grams at a time, they keep prices low to broaden their customer base; at the Colonne di San Lorenzo the Africans reign instead, especially Gambians, they stash the stuff in the crevices of the monuments, and attack anyone – journalists or policemen – you try to disturb their traffic.
It is a zero risk activity, and this impunity plays a role in increasing the exasperation of the inhabitants of the neighborhoods, which sees drug dealers who are arrested reappear in circulation within a matter of hours. It's the fault of a law wanted by the Letta government, last legacy before its scrapping in 2014: the so-called "prison emptying decree", which prevents judges from issuing precautionary custody orders for crimes punishable by less than five years in prison. And since the fifth paragraph of the narcotics law, which punishes retail sales, provides for sentences ranging from six months to four years, the judge can only release. In theory, house arrest could be triggered, but being (or claiming to be) homeless, the pushers are released with at most the obligation to sign every now and then at the police station. Obviously they immediately go back to dealing: even in the event of a new arrest, they wouldn't end up in prison anyway. The do-gooder law also applies to repeat offenders.
This explains the security climate, of control of the territory, sometimes of arrogance of these gangs. That, inevitably, makes them raise their heads, to set new goals by looking at higher levels of the business: so last Friday evening the financial police in Verona arrested a Nigerian with a kilo of drugs and a Gambian with another kilo; in Massa a Moroccan, well known for a long time, gets caught making the leap: he has seven kilos of cocaine in the car. A quantity for an aspiring boss.
Source: http://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/spacciatori-liberi-poche-ore-col-decreto-governo-pd-1490800.html