The Loss of Youth: Failure of Fascist Juvenile Justice System and Its Legacy in Postwar Italy
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In 1946, Italian neorealist director Vittorio De Sica released the film Shoeshine, in which he turned the spotlight on the children in postwar Italy. In the film, innocent children were displaced from their families in the turmoil of society. On the gritty streets, shoeshines peddled stolen wares, engaged in deceit, and faced the harsh confines of juvenile detention centers. De Sica’s film is a condemnation of the Italian juvenile justice system’s disregard for the fate and upbringing of young people. He films the poor sanitation and the corruption of guards in juvenile prisons and reveals how the grim realities of adult life encroach upon the innocence of childhood. The protagonists, Giuseppe and Maggi, were originally intimate friends, but under the coercion of the prison warden and the instigation of other juvenile delinquents, they were forced to betray each other to survive. The movie ends with Maggi reporting Giuseppe’s escape direction and killing his best friend. The realistic movie shows that the postwar Italian juvenile justice distorts the minds of children and victimize them in the chaotic society, which is a continuation of its fascist precursor. In fascist Italy, the juvenile court believed in recidivism, imposed authoritarian control and militarization over juvenile delinquents, and introduced the family as the primary institution to emphasize fascist patriarchy, obedience, and loyalty to the regime. However, the fall of fascism resulted in a loss of faith, and the upheaval and trauma of the World War II undermined the stability of family system, which finally led to a judicial limbo in the transitional juvenile justice system and the victimization of children in postwar Italy.
The establishment of the first Italian juvenile court, tribunal per i minorenni, followed the fascist criminal justice reformation in 1930, when the fascist government enacted the Rocco Code. Named after minister of justice Alfredo Rocco, the penal code embodied fascist political authoritarianism by criminalizing opposition to the regime and imposing harsh penalties for political offenses such as reason, subversion, and the spreading of conspiracy. More importantly, the fascist government established the penal code to emphasize fascist moral value, which centered on nationalism, conformity, and conservative domestic values. The juvenile justice system was one of the institutions responsible for infiltrating such moral values, and it emphasized the role of family in shaping children’s fascist values. In the article “Fascist Italy’s juvenile courts in their infancy”, scholar Paul Garfinkel investigated 71 cases in the juvenile court in Rome, which was the first Italian district court that authorized the special juvenile section by Minister Alfredo Rocco. In all the cases, minors were sentenced to “pericolosità sociale (social dangerousness),” and were sent to detention facilities. Moreover, in the judicial decision-makings, judges mainly evaluate the “criminal proclivities” of the juvenile delinquents, that is, whether they have tendency to commit another crime. The criteria to determine offenders’ inclination is not objective facts of crime, but rather the nature and circumstances of the status offenders. Judges believe that a degraded social milieu directly contributes to a juvenile’s moral deficiencies, giving them an instinctive tendency to commit crimes. Therefore, even if juvenile offenders commit first time offenses, the juvenile court will determine that their harsh upbringing brought about a moral deficiency that would make them repeat offenders, so that the court will still label them as habitual delinquent and sent them to detention facilities.
This judicial decision-making process, which seems to be irrational as it is based on the subjective perspectives of the judges, is in fact a product of the pro-family system in the fascist regime. The judicial procedure makes family units responsible for shaping the moral value of children, because Mussolini’s administration believed that family is the primary institution for the reinforcement of fascist patriarchy, obedience, patriotism, and loyalty to the government, and a solid family system would provide support and strength to the military power and the stability of the fascist regime. As a result, instead of using strict criteria to regulate juvenile delinquency in the justice procedure, the fascist juvenile justice system in the first place emphasized on the importance of the family in rehabilitation, consolidating the family system. For instance, there were many policies that emphasized parental responsibility in juvenile delinquency. In cases of nonserious acting-out behaviors, the fascist juvenile court magistrates could order parents or guardians to educate and supervise their children properly. If the parents were not able to regulate the misbehavior of their children, the court allowed fathers to ask a civil magistrate to confine their unruly children in the correzione paterna, a kind of civil court in fascist Italy, and sent them to the juvenile court. Therefore, in the ideal state of Mussolini and the fascist government, the participation of the family in the juvenile justice system could not only function as a substitute for the court to play the role of rehabilitation, but also strengthen the social family structure and the stability of the regime.
It is true that the family is one of the most important factors in the education and growth of youth and stabilizing the regime by reinforcing traditional family structure also a theoretically valid approach. However, Mussolini’s pro-family system did not meet the expected effect of the juvenile court officials and was proved a failure in postwar Italy. The introduction of the family into the juvenile justice system to indoctrinate juvenile delinquents was ineffective because the level of economic and social development during the fascist period could not guarantee that family education could drive the reduction of juvenile delinquency. In the early 1930s, the worldwide depression led to financial crisis with the bankruptcy of major Italian banks, and a large number of industries came close to failure. During the depression, many families struggled with unemployment and inadequate living conditions, and it was difficult for them to afford raising and educating children properly, resulting in increasing child vagrancy and pauperism. Therefore, even if the juvenile court magistrate called on parents to take responsibility when their children committed crimes, parents who could not take care of themselves gave up educating their children. In response to such situation, the later stages of the development of the fascist juvenile court had countermeasures, that magistrates could revoke the “patria potestà (legal paternal authority)” of unfit parents, and instead send minors to juvenile detention centers, allowing the juvenile court to take over the parental role and reinforce the fascist moral value of juvenile delinquents.
Moreover, the pro-family system and the fascist moral value was in essence inappropriate to the development of the individual and the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents. One significant flaw of the family system was the imposition of rigid gender roles and expectations. Mussolini expected a fascist family structure in which an obedient and virtuous wife served and supported a warlike and violent husband, and in which daughters were expected to develop domestic skills in preparation for motherhood, while sons should follow the route to become a soldier. People raised under the fascist family system lived under the oppression of the fascist patriarchy and were required to conform to such values. Alberto Moravia, in his novel The Conformist, denounces the fascist government’s oppression of sexuality and individuality. In the novel, the protagonist Marcello has typical fascist family, with a tyrannical and violent father who often neglects his wife, so he has been living under the oppression of patriarchy. According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, patriarchy creates a “castration anxiety” in men, which creates a fear of possessing femininity in a male. Such anxiety is further exacerbated by Marcello’s experience of being bullied and sexually assaulted, so Marcello has always been afraid of displaying femininity to anyone. This has led him to work and live within the fascist system all the time simultaneously hiding his true desires, while obsessively behaving like a typical fascist male with fascist values, who always ready for war and obediently serving the fascist government. In the juvenile justice system, young offenders are also constantly reinforced by traditional gender roles in the family and in juvenile detention centers. For example, boys are sent to youth organizations such as the Opera Nazionale Balilla for military-style training, physical fitness programs, and ideological indoctrination aimed at fostering a sense of discipline, camaraderie, and a sense of responsibility to the fascist cause to promote their martial spirit, while girls are forced to learn domestic skills like substituting for male juvenile delinquents living in reformatories. The girls were forced to learn domestic skills like performing laundry works and cooking for the male juvenile delinquents living in reformatories. Such emphasis of stereotypical domestic sex roles and the obedience towards the fascist regime marginalize individuals who did not conform to the norm, which stifled personal development and the ability to reintegrate into society among juvenile delinquents.
The introduction of the pro-family system in the juvenile justice system and the rehabilitation methods to reinforce of fascist moral value were proven a failure after the fall of the fascist Italy. After the defeat of Italy in WWII and the collapse of Mussolini’s regime, the juvenile justice system faced challenges in adapting to the new political realities and in reconciling with the legacy of fascist ideology during the period of Allied occupation and the transition to a democratic government. Therefore, the authoritarian control exerted by the regime over the juvenile justice system came to an abrupt halt. Logically speaking, the fascist juvenile justice system emphasized family as the primary institution for rehabilitation, and the militarized management and education of juvenile delinquents to reinforce the entire family system, should have made the system capable of withstanding social change. However, the upheaval and trauma of World War II disrupted family life and exacerbated the negative impacts of the fascist moral value and its pro-family system. Firstly, because of the war, many children experienced loss, displacement, and deprivation. According to the United Nation Archive, in February 1944, after the Allied landed in Sicily, the Allied Control Commission (ACC) estimated that between 25,000 and 50,000 Italians were already in displaced, and the number increased by 10-15,000 per month. Then in 1947, after the fall of fascism, the Preparatory Commission for the International Refugee Organization (PCIRO) recorded that it assisted over 65,000 people in Italy. Beneath this huge number are the uncountable numbers of families that have been separated and displaced, thus undermining the stability and cohesion of family structure established by the fascist regime. This disruption further eroded fascism’s influence over children and weakened adherence to its values.
Meanwhile, what had been a hardline reinforcement of fascist moral value began to fail because of the collapse of political faith among Italians. In the book Fascist Voice, Christopher Duggan, a scholar of fascist studies, refers to the intellectual influence of the fascist regime, suggesting that the regime was completely built on faith and obedience. He wrote that the restricted parameters of discussion in the fascist regime left people “insulated with a kind of emotional bubble,” that people who worked and lived under the fascism were deprived of the capacity to fully understand what the repercussion of fascist ideologies in the real world is. Therefore, people were compelled and implicitly oppressed by the fascist regime to do its bidding. Moreover, fascism’s repression of people’s individuality had the effect in society of making people obsessively try to fit in with others and gradually embrace the fascist regime. Therefore, when the regime collapsed, the people who had been completely conformed to the fascist ideology immediately lost their political faith and were confused to realize that the promises made to them by Mussolini and the fascist regime were lies. The diary of Maria Carazzolo, an eighteen-year-old student from the small town of Montagnana in the Veneto, in 1943 shows the feelings of people growing up under the fascist regime who were disillusioned with the practices of Mussolini and the fascist government in the war but did not want to completely abandon the faith that they had invested for the regime. She first condemned the fascist government’s suppression of liberty, writing “Our Victory? The victory in other words of Hitler and Mussolini? The assassins of liberty? Ah! Never, never!” However, her national identity and her dedication to the regime made her hesitate to “betray” her own political belief. She wrote: “But I cannot stop myself being Italian, I have not got the courage, nor perhaps the right, to say: it does not matter.” Similar to Maria, millions of Italians fell into doubt about their political faith that they constructed during fascism, but eventually, their faith system collapsed after the defeat of Italy in WWII. Therefore, the end of the fascist regime dealt a severe blow to the loyalty and trust in the regime emphasized by the fascist moral value, resulting in the gradual disintegration of the fascist value system.
In the turmoil of society, children were the victims of the collapse of family and moral values, along with the halt in the juvenile justice system. Postwar Italy lacks judicial statistics on juvenile arrest and dropout rates due to the corruption and breakdown of the government, but the social problems of unemployment, poverty, and crime are evident in the artistic works of the time. Following World War II, filmmakers like Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica resented the harm that fascism had brought the nation and investigated the grim situation of the real society. Therefore. they focused on the lives of lower class ordinary, using non-professional actors and realistic camera techniques to depict the war’s negative impact on people. This period, known as Neo-Realism Italian cinema, produced numerous films, many of which featured children as protagonists or supporting characters, showing the cruel society through the innocent eyes of children. Works like Shoeshine and Bicycle Thieves, directed by De Sica, portrayed family and juvenile delinquency issues, highlighting the breakdown of family structures and flaws in the juvenile justice system.
The films show the failure and ineffectiveness of the fascist family system and patriarchy by portraying the absence of family and the breakdown of family structure in postwar Italy. In the beginning scene of Shoeshine, the protagonists Giuseppe and Pasquale, two teenage boys with dysfunctional families, squat by the side of the road and shine shoes for people. All the shoeshine boys do not go to school or apprenticeship, and instead they wander the streets every day, sleep in the elevators and try to make their own livings. The children are independent, however, and their parents and family are completely absent from their lives. The teenagers don’t have access to education and the support from the family, but they are at the age when their values have not been fully shaped, and they were not capable to think and judge independently. Therefore, they cannot judge and decide whether their actions are right or wrong when they are committing criminal actions. Adults often take advantage of these children, leading them to depravity and crime. In Shoeshine, Giuseppe and Pasquale are caught up in a scam by Giuseppe’s brother Attilio, who asks the two kids to sell blankets to a fortune teller, while Attilio and his partners pretend to be police officers to break in the home of the fortune teller, accuse her of carrying stolen good and defrauded her of 2,800 lire. Then, the police traced the fraud back to the two boys and sent them to a juvenile detention center, because Attilio gives Giuseppe and Pasquale the money. The plot illustrates that in some cases, family members like Attilio are not able to lead and educate the children, but even use them as tools for committing crimes. In the fascist system, the family supposed to be the primary institution for reinforcing moral value and should become fully involved in the education and growth of young people. On the contrary, the post-war Italian society proved it a failure, that many families are completely absent from the children’s growth, and even lead the children to the path of crime, resulting in significant number of orphaned or abandoned children who were left without proper care and support.
The amoral familism, which is a special social orientation developed in the social upheaval in postwar Italy, is also a factor to the abuse of children. In 1955, American political scientist Edward C. Banfield investigated Chiaromonte, a town in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata, and wrote about his observation in the book The Moral Basis of a Backward Society. He describes a cultural orientation in the town, where familial loyalty and self-interest override broader ethical considerations or societal norms. Banfield observed that the Southern Italian Mafias and a self-centered clan-system promoting the well-being of their inner group at the expense of the other ones. In the context of postwar Italy, amoral familism was triggered by a combination of historical factors, including the breakdown of traditional family structures due to war, economic hardship, and political instability. Also, in a review essay of the book, scholar William Muraskin maintains that the fascist government’s pro-family system and reinforcement of loyalty to the regime also contributed to people’s “prioritization of familial interests over broader ethical principles,” that individuals were inclined to prioritize their own or their family’s interests above those of the wider community, perpetuating a cycle of moral ambiguity.
The negative impact of amoral familism on postwar Italian society is depicted in characters’ actions in Bicycle Thieves. In 1948, De Sica made this movie about a young man, Antonio Ricci, who kept searching for his stolen bicycle which he used to make a living. After being constantly hindered by the police and the pawnbroker, Antonio is forced to try to steal another bicycle, only to be caught by the bicycle’s owner. Fortunately, the owner sees the innocent tears of Antonio’s son Bruno and forgives the thieve. In the end, Bruno holds his father’s helpless hand, and with tears in their eyes, they disappear into the bustling crowd. In the movie, amoral familism is first reflected in the nepotism in postwar Italian police system. When Antonio anxiously reports the suspected theft of his bicycle after he was not able to check the serial number, the police officer seems indifferent and unwilling to prioritize Antonio’s case over others. It shows police’s bias towards protecting the interest of his acquaintances. Then, when Antonio seeks assistance from the pawnbroker in locating his stolen bicycle, the pawnbroker takes advantage of Antonio’s desperation and offers to sell him a replacement bicycle at an expensive price. Such opportunistic behavior highlights the prevalence of amoral familism in postwar Italian society. Furthermore, for Antonio himself, the ethical dilemma he falls into when he decides to steal a bicycle is also a reflection of the pervasive influence of amoral familism. When Antonio considers stealing a bicycle himself in retaliation for his own theft, he thinks a great deal about the advantages and disadvantages of stealing a bicycle himself for his own family. Ultimately, however, survival trumps ethical considerations, and he decides to be a “bad person” in his own moral sense by stealing a bicycle. In the cases of the police, the pawnbroker, and Antonio, loyalty and self-preservation often take precedence over principles of honesty, integrity, and compassion.
Bicycle Thieves highlights the moral ambiguities and ethical challenges faced by ordinary people in a world where familial loyalty and self-interest often clash with broader moral values. Growing up in such a value system, children are subjected to many negative influences. For example, in the movie, there is a boy named Bruno who accompanies his father in his work and in the search for the stolen bicycle. What sets Bruno apart is that he doesn't behave like a typical child. While Antonio, his father, becomes absorbed in his newfound job, Bruno diligently helps his father clean the bicycle and is deeply troubled by the damages on it. Before leaving, he carefully closes the windows for his sister. Bruno simply behaves like an adult, yet society hasn’t treated him as one, and his family hasn't fully entrusted him with adult responsibilities. When Antonio, frustrated by his unsuccessful search for the bicycle, slaps Bruno, it marks the most intense clash between the harsh realities of the world and Bruno’s “adult-like” demeanor. In this conflict, Bruno immediately reveals his true childish nature, a rare moment of him being a child. The conflict is resolved as Antonio, in a desperate attempt to maintain his dignity and stature in his son’s eyes, takes Bruno out for a lavish meal, allowing Bruno to gradually understand the vulnerabilities of his father’s imposing image and the hardships of upholding it. Through the portrayal of Bruno, it is evident that the societal and impoverished family environment of postwar Italy, combined with his exposure to the adult world through encounters with the police and pawnbroker, have subtly influenced his psyche, prematurely maturing him, and robbing him of the innocence that children should rightfully possess.
In addition to the failure of the family system and the absence of the family in the development of young people, the inappropriate juvenile justice system of postwar Italy was also crucial to the loss of youth of children. Instead of adopting child-centered approaches that focused on the unique needs and vulnerabilities of children, the system sometimes prioritized punitive measures or bureaucratic procedures. In Shoeshine’s depiction of the juvenile prisons, juvenile delinquents are confined in cramped, filthy cells and fed moldy food that makes Pasquale nauseous. Moreover, in the harsh living environment, the prison staffs do not have a strict management mechanism. In the movie, the children exchange cigarette rolls for matches with the guards, which are details that can show the economic hardship and material scarcity of Italy at that time. One of the most disturbing scenes in the movie is when the prison authorities pretend to whip Giuseppe behind the door to instill fear in Pasquale, and then Pasquale reveals that the manipulator of the fortune teller’s fraud case is Attilio. After this forced confession, a conflict between Giuseppe and Pasquale emerges, as Giuseppe believes that Pasquale has betrayed him. He hangs out with the other juvenile delinquents in his cell and even plans for an escape, forever losing his innocence and the friendship with Pasquale. The prison authorities use the underhanded methods of dealing with adult social disputes on children, leading them into a chaotic social environment and a sinister world.
Furthermore, the juvenile justice system in postwar Italy lacks a separate judicial process for minors. During the trial in the movie, Giuseppe and Pasquale are interrogated along with Attilio, an adult criminal. In the court room, the judge throws a lot of complicated legal jargon at Pasquale, making him unable to defend for himself without understanding the legal proceedings. The judge does not consider that Pasquale is uneducated, and he is not able to hire a lawyer. The carelessness of the judge shows that the postwar Italian society lacks special concern for the situation of the juvenile delinquents, treating them as adult and putting them into unequal trails. During the court proceedings, the prosecutor says, “If we insist that these children are guilty, then we, the adults, are the first to be punished.” This line is one of the few lines that possesses purpose and subjectivity in De Sica’s insistence on presenting the irrational juvenile justice system in the truest language of the camera. He emphasizes that failure of the rehabilitation in the juvenile justice system makes juvenile delinquents lose their innocence and trust in society. Therefore, the minors are unable to continue to live and work in a normal way in the society.
After World War II, Italy entered a “hollow” period. Countless people were displaced by the war, the economy was in turmoil, and people’s souls were adrift. The almost obsessive emphasis on the family system by the fascist government and the oppression of individuality under Mussolini’s dictatorship were all reflected in the fascist juvenile justice, as well as after the collapse of the fascist regime. The inability to trust or form strong connections outside of immediate family further led to moral corruption and poverty in society. In the prevailing atmosphere of refined selfishness, the entire juvenile justice system had no time to focus on the unique existence of young people. They roamed, committed crimes, and lost their precious childhood innocence. De Sica, the master of neorealism, successfully depicted the sadness of this era in Shoeshine and Bicycle Thieve, making them important primary documents for investigating postwar Italy. After the stabilization of the post-war Italian government, the juvenile justice system underwent reform and progress to avoiding a repeat of the tragedy of the children of postwar Italy. They paid more attention to the special mental and physical conditions of juvenile offenders and striving to reintegrate them into society, enabling the gradual resolution of the problem of juvenile delinquency.
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