ISTAT said Friday that over a third of the Italian population, 33.9%, believe they live in an area at risk of crime, up by 11.9 percentage points with respect to the national statistics agency's previous survey on perceived safety.
In the 2015-2016 period, it is estimated that 27.6% of citizens felt little or not at all safe when going out alone in the dark, and for 38.2% of citizens say crime affects their habits very much or quite a lot, ISTAT said. Compared to previous surveys, fear of crime is stable, while the influence of crime on habits decreased from 48.5% to 38.2%.
"The sense of insecurity of women is decidedly higher than that of men: 36.6% do not go out in the evening because of fear (compared to 8.5% of men), 35.3% feel insecure when they walk alone in the evening (19.3% of men)," ISTAT said. "The elderly have a similar insecurity profile".
The statistics agency added that the percentage of people worried about crime fell between 2008-2009 and 2015-2016.
It said that in the 2015-2016 period, 41.9% of citizens were worried about being victim of bag-snatching or pick-pocketing (down 6.3 percentage points from 2008-2009), 40.5% of an aggression or a robbery (-7.1 percentage points), 37% of car theft (-6.7) and 28.7% (-14) experienced fear for themselves or their family members of being victim of sexual violence. It said 60.2% of citizens are (very or fairly) worried about their homes being burgled, a figure that is stable with respect to the previous period.
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