By Angelo Amante
ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s rightist government on Thursday passed a raft of measures to improve public security, sources said, allowing judges to jail women who are pregnant or have very young children, in a move aimed at pickpockets.
The coalition League party had long asked to scrap the rule which prevents such women being sent straight to jail, as part of its campaign against foreign pickpockets on public transport.
In the past, the anti-immigrant League leader and deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini blamed women of Roma ethnicity, saying they exploited their pregnancy to avoid jail when caught.
“This is a League battle that the left had blocked in the past months,” Salvini wrote on Facebook.
Under the proposal, judges will be allowed to order jail for such offenders, especially if they are habitual criminals, but they won’t be bound to do so, the same sources 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 repeatedly blocked highways and streets across the country to demand action against climate change, provoking the ire of drivers.
The sources said that such initiatives will be treated as crimes when they are “particularly offensive and alarming,” for the presence of more than one people and for having been organised beforehand.
The government also ruled to push through parliament a clampdown on protests by prison inmates and on those who use minors to beg for money. It additionally proposed tougher jail terms for people who threaten or use violence against police officials.
(Reporting by Angelo Amante, Editing by William Maclean)
