Bologna, July 12, 2026 – They hide knives of all kinds in backpacks or pockets. It doesn’t matter if they are kitchen utensils or sharp machetes: what matters is having a blade with them, outside the home and even at school. To appear ’grown-up’ in the eyes of their peers and commit violent street crimes even for a few coins, not understanding the danger – for themselves and others – of a cutting weapon. A tool to carry, however, also for the perception of feeling more ’safe’ and ’protected’, reflecting the fragility and discomfort that our young people experience daily.
A complex social picture
A complex social picture lies behind the increasingly widespread and alarming presence of bladed weapons among minors and very young people. A phenomenon that is sharply increasing at the national level (in the last five years the number of minors reported for illegal carrying of weapons in Italy has more than doubled), but also under the Two Towers.
The framework of an emergency
The Carabinieri provide a comprehensive overview of this emergency, detailing provincial data and interventions carried out on this issue. In the metropolitan area, starting from January 1, 2025, at least 30 worrying incidents involving minors and young people up to a maximum age of 23 years have emerged. The youngest, involved in an attempted aggravated extortion, is only 13 years old.
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Maximum attention in schools
Attention is highest in the school environment, which “is not immune to the phenomenon.” In fact, during the analyzed period, the Carabinieri intervened in several institutions between the province and the city. There are six particularly alarming incidents: in May, in San Lazzaro, “a 14-year-old student, for reasons related to bullying, threatened a classmate brandishing a folding knife with a 20-centimeter blade”; in December 2025, two minors unrelated to the school entered a high school in San Lazzaro, “covered by balaclavas and carrying a fixed-blade knife of 20 centimeters.” In Budrio, instead, a 41-centimeter knife was seized in a school area. In the city, the situation is similar: last spring, in Navile, two interventions were recorded “separately in the same high school: in the first case, teachers found a 14-year-old with an eight-centimeter knife hidden in his pockets”; in the second case, an 18-year-old boy was stopped with a multi-tool knife. In Corticella, finally, the principal of a kindergarten found “in the courtyard, just as the children were playing, an abandoned knife with a 23-centimeter blade.”
Teenagers getting into trouble
Teenagers getting into trouble, according to the Carabinieri’s analysis, for illegal carrying of offensive objects and other crimes, such as aggravated robberies, tried extortions, and personal injuries. Scenes that particularly occur in “contexts of street fights or within reception communities, with a strong correlation with youth discomfort and drug abuse.” Among the cases considered are incidents of threats with knives, but also “worrying social dynamics.” Some examples? Two incidents that happened a few days ago in via Fioravanti and piazza Verdi: in both cases, groups of armed youths robbed peers for meager loot. Dynamics that show the disproportion between the violence of the act and the stolen goods. Crucial is the background in which such events take place: from the data emerged from the Carabinieri’s checks, “the critical issues of parking areas and public transport hubs” such as stations emerge, which often become “the theaters where young people confront each other armed.”
