The Stories We Are, Antonio: “When I was the head of a baby gang”

A row of mopeds descend along the narrow streets of the Montesanto district in Naples. At the wheel they are all boys, they are no more than 15 years old. Some have a gun in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Among them there is Antonio, short hair and pulled to one side with the gel. He is the head of the baby gang. No one has a helmet, some honk their horns, some scream instead. To frighten.

“I grew up with a father who was in prison for ten years. Let’s say that I know that environment well ”, says Antonio, who is 19 today and with his former baby gang mates does not“ go down ”on the street anymore. “Our goal was to scare us, to show ourselves powerful. We used violence against people and we also happened to argue with some big shots of the Camorra “. For more than a year Antonio has traded day for night. “I no longer went to school, during the day I slept alone and when it was dark I got up to go out with the group. For the Camorra, baby gangs are like a brainless arm but we didn’t understand it. We felt important and had nothing to lose“.

The turning point for Antonio came one afternoon in the courtyard of the neighborhood oratory. «I went to meet the new priest, Don Michele Madonna and from the first moment he made me discover a way that before I could not see. A different world from the one the neighborhood offered me ». Little by little Antonio came out of it. “I discovered simple things that may seem trivial but they literally saved my life: like singing, afternoons at the oratory, volunteering”.

Over the past year, child gangs made up of minors have increased across the country, from North to South. According to the latest report by the Criminal Analysis Service of the Central Directorate of the Criminal Police on minors during the pandemic period, the number of minors reported or arrested increased by 10%, about 25,000 in 2021, and the number of crimes increased by 20% .

«Today I find myself with a diploma and I go to university. I am still in contact with my friends from before because they are a piece of my life, sometimes we eat together but I don’t hang out with them anymore. They went their way and I went mine “.

Other stories of Vanity Fair that may interest you:

-The new baby gangs, rising from north to south. Who they are and how they affect

-In a baby gang, where nobody wants to be “O’scemo”

Source: Vanity Fair

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