(ANS – Rome) – Moving beyond an emergency-driven mindset and putting education back at the center, through cohesion among all social stakeholders. This is the appeal launched by Borgo Ragazzi Don Bosco with the conference “The Human Face of Juvenile Delinquency – Understanding to Reactivate the Future Through Education, Community, and Intervention Systems,” scheduled for January 30, 2026, beginning at 9:00 a.m., at its headquarters at Via Prenestina 468 in Rome.

The initiative aims to shift the focus from crime alone to the individual, promoting a deeper and more responsible understanding of the juvenile offender. This paradigm shift restores social mediation to a central role as an educational strategy capable of integrating prevention, empowerment, and social reintegration.

Borgo Ragazzi Don Bosco, together with its Round Table on Juvenile Delinquency, stresses the urgent need to move beyond exclusively punitive responses, which often prove ineffective in preventing recidivism and fostering real personal growth. The goal is to build intervention models that do not merely punish behavior, but instead address the root causes of the problem, giving minors the opportunity to regain well-being and rebuild their life plans.

From this perspective, the proposed model represents a concrete alternative to recent emergency-based security policies, focusing on prevention, educational support, and social reintegration. Understanding the factors that lead a minor to commit a crime is essential to prevent identification with crime from becoming a fixed destiny.

“Only a deep understanding of the reality surrounding minors allows us to take truly preventive action,” says Cecilia Corrias, Director of the Borgo Ragazzi Don Bosco Minors Reception Center. “It is essential to develop balanced strategies through dialogue among all the actors involved: families, schools, juvenile justice institutions, law enforcement agencies, and correctional officers. Only genuine cohesion among these worlds can generate effective educational projects that respond to the real needs of young people.”

The conference represents the culmination of a process that began in 2022 with the meeting “I ragazzi sono di chi arriva prima” (Children Belong to Whoever Gets There First), organized by the Borgo Ragazzi Don Bosco Juvenile Reception Center in collaboration with the Juvenile Justice Center. The initiative sought to promote a culture of prevention and social mediation. This ongoing commitment also aims to counter sensationalist narratives about juvenile delinquency, favoring instead communication rooted in knowledge and social responsibility.

In light of recent events in La Spezia and Naples involving minors in episodes of extreme violence, there is a risk that collective shock and outrage may fuel simplified and repressive interpretations of the phenomenon, steering public opinion and political decision-making toward exclusively punitive responses.

“We understand the pain and fear that these events generate,” says Fr. Emanuele De Maria, Salesian and Director of Borgo Ragazzi Don Bosco, “but we believe it is essential not to lose sight of the human dimension of the minor and the personal, family, and social circumstances that led them to commit the crime. Abandoning this perspective means abandoning the very possibility of prevention.” It is with this conviction that Borgo Ragazzi Don Bosco continues to rely on the power of education—the same power that guided Don Bosco when he said, “If these children had had a friend ready to care for them, they would not have ended up here.”

In the afternoon, the conference will conclude with the signing of a Territorial Educational Agreement by the stakeholders involved in the thematic working groups, confirming a concrete and shared commitment to the local community. The ultimate objective is the creation of a Permanent Institutional Round Table, capable of transforming the insights that have emerged into long-term educational and training policies.

Source: borgodonbosco.it