(ANSA) - Naples should work harder to help police stop its crime wave, Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said on Wednesday. Calling for "a strategic alliance between citizens and institutions," Pisanu admitted that a long gangland war was threatening the city's chances of reviving its economy.
More than 100 people have been killed in the last 12 months in a battle inside the Camorra, Naples' Mafia.
The government has sent hundreds of police to the southern port city, set up a Camorra task force that has stepped up confiscations of mob property, and urged people in high-crime areas to help fight the mob.
Pisanu hailed the success of anti-Camorra operations, saying that 18 gangs were busted in the first half of 2005 compared to eight in the whole of 2004. "Naples isn't in the hands of criminals," he said, but added that the city's future development depended on its solving its crime problem.
In some Naples areas, the official unemployment rate is around 50% and is even higher in the age group from which the Camorra recruits.
There have been episodes in the past year in which crowds have turned out in high-crime districts to protest against the arrests of well-known gangsters. "Without law and order there (can be) no development but without collaboration between public institutions and civil society there can be neither law and order nor development," Pisanu told business leaders.
The minister also came out against a cabinet colleague's call to ease a just-launched campaign to confiscate scooters for a series of violations, including minor ones, of the highway code.
The scooter campaign has been seen as a weapon against the bag-snatching that still plagues southern cities like Naples.
