Court of Treviso, Criminal Sec., Feb. 26, 2025, no. 376
The “stalking” phenomenon in Italy, facts and figures
In recent years, stalking has emerged with increasing evidence as a large-scale social phenomenon in Italy, not limited to isolated cases, but widespread and expanding both in public perception and in official statistical data.
In fact, the number of calls to the public utility number 1522[1] (anti-violence and stalking number), requesting help from victims of stalking, has seen a sharp increase: from 897 in 2019[2] to 2115 in 2024[3] and, according to data reported by the State Police in the latest report in March 2025[4], stalking crimes committed in 2024 were 20.289, compared to 19,538 in 2023 and 18671 in 2022, confirming a continuously increasing trend, with victims always predominantly female (consistently around 75%).
As early as 2014, ISTAT, in its latest completed survey[5], estimated that 3,466,000 women, or 16.1 percent of women between the ages of 16 and 70, had experienced persecutory acts by someone in their lifetime, and that among women in the same age group who had an ex-partner, 21.5 percent (or 2,151,000,000) had experienced persecutory behavior by an ex-partner in their lifetime[6].
During the year alone considered in the survey, there were 147,000 victims from ex-partners, while those who had reported stalking from other people 478,000.[7]
These data confirm that stalking – for a long time – has not been a marginal incident, but a structural reality with high numbers and an increasing trend, involving mostly women and finding the ex-partner as the main perpetrator.
The impact on victims’ psychological health and freedom of self-determination makes a broad and effective interpretation of the criminal protection provided by Article 612 bis of the Criminal Code crucial.
And instead, the decision of the Court of Treviso in commentary, excluded the configurability of the crime of persecutory acts even in the face of multiple invasive and intimidating behaviors, going against all the indications, including international ones, now constantly given to Italy regarding the protection of victims of gender violence, confirming the great resistance of the jurisprudence to make that paradigm shift necessary to achieve a system that can guarantee real instruments of protection for victims of violence.
The judgment, in order to acquit the defendant, uses different types of readings that are incompatible with an effective framing of the case:
- the fragmentation of persecutory conduct into isolated episodes, resulting in a devaluation of the unitary intimidation effect;
- Failure to consider all the elements determining a well-founded fear for personal safety;
- the rigid and quantitative conception of the change in living habits, understood as a radical outward disruption of daily routines, rather than as also a qualitative and psychological limitation of the freedom of self-determination.
The facts
The court reports–considering them fully proven–the defendant’s very serious conduct toward his former partner, consisting of:
- a very serious assault that occurred during an argument, with significant injuries reported with a prognosis of seven days (and for which the defendant is convicted of injury);
- The misappropriation of the cell phone to check its contents, with refusal to return it;
- The subsequent repeated sending of offensive and threatening whatsapp messages;
- covert control by installing a GPS device to track its movements;
- the man’s frequent passes under her home and workplaces and contacts with the gym manager to hinder her membership;
However, he does not believe that they resulted in any appreciable change in the life habits of the offended person, who would continue to frequent the gym, work and family environment, without explicitly reporting that he made changes to avoid possible encounters.
For this reason, the judge acquitted the defendant of the charge under Article 612 bis of the Criminal Code, convicting him of only the crime of bodily injury (Article 582 of the Criminal Code) related to the assault.
The argumentative path of the court
The ruling values two logical steps:
- the threatening message is considered a mere wish and not a concrete threat;
- GPS and stalking are considered to lack persecutory relevance because their impact on the victim’s daily life is not considered proven, with the offended person’s reports not being considered sufficient and relevant, and instead giving credence to the justificatory, albeit unlikely, readings offered by the defendant’s defense.
The decision would thus seem to hinge on a formalist and restrictive concept of a change in living habits: following the arguments of the trial judge, the crime would be integrated only in the presence of tangible and radical changes (such as changes of domicile, interruption of social activities, change of working hours or places) and not also in the case of invasive conduct that generates latent fear or qualitative limitations in freedom of movement.
Critical profiles: the “game” of episode breakdown
The Tribunal’s approach thus raises several concerns.
In fact, the artificial breakdown operated on the totality of conduct and the parceled evaluation of each individual episode risk losing sight of the cumulative persecutory effect: the crime of stalking, on the other hand, is characterized by habitual conduct, which requires a unified and contextual reading.
As for the proof of the event, the judge seems to require an explicit statement from the victim about the change of life that took place; this risks turning the absence of verbalization into “negative evidence,” to the detriment of the assessment, even circumstantial, of anxiety, fear and psychological conditioning resulting from the complex of conduct acted.
The event referred to in Article 612 bis of the Criminal Code, on the other hand, according to the jurisprudence of legitimacy, does not necessarily imply a quantitative material transformation of daily routines, but may consist of qualitative limitations, even implicit and internalized, affecting freedom and self-determination.
And in fact, the Supreme Court over time has made it clear that “on the subject of persecutory acts, for the purposes of identifying the change in lifestyle habits as an integrative element of the crime under Article 612 bis of the Criminal Code, it is necessary to consider the significance and emotional consequences of the coercion on the lifestyle habits to which the victim feels he or she is being forced, and not the purely quantitative assessment of the changes made (Sec. 5, No. 24021 of 04/29/2014, G, Rv. 260580)”[8], that, in addition, the offense exists even if the harassing conduct is interspersed with a long period of time, as long as the unity of the offense and the intimidating effect remain intact[9] and that even the reciprocity of the conduct does not exclude stalking, but only requires a punctual motivation as to the existence of the damaging event in the offended person’s sphere[10].
An elastic and substantive notion of “change” is thus delineated, which takes into account the psychological experience of the victim and does not demand documentary evidence of outward changes.
This approach contrasts with the one adopted by the Treviso court and would allow it to be argued that the persecutory event can be said to be integrated even in the absence of physical displacement or radical organizational changes, when the state of subjection, fear and limitation of freedom of self-determination is proven.
The approach followed by the judge of merit – based on the analytical breakdown of the episodes and the exclusion of relevance of internalized limitations, if not accompanied by tangible external changes – would, thus, stand in contrast to the established orientation of the jurisprudence of legitimacy. The Supreme Court has repeatedly clarified, in fact, that the crime of persecutory acts does not necessarily require a material and visible alteration of the habits of life, since the event may also consist of qualitative, silent and internalized changes, as long as they are capable of affecting the victim’s freedom of self-determination (see Cass. Pen., Sec. V, March 6 – April 16, 2025, no. 15165 and Cass. Pen. Sec. V, Jan. 10 – Feb. 20, 2024).
In the same vein, the Supreme Court has reiterated that the judge’s assessment must concern the unitary whole of conduct and not their atomistic examination (see Cass. Pen., Sec. V, May 2 – August 6, 2024, No. 32081; Cass. Pen., Sec. V, May 8 – 2025, No. 18868; and Cass. Pen., Sec. V, Nov. 22, 2019 – Jan. 27, 2020, No. 3251), recognizing significance to the psychological experience of the offended person.
Concluding remarks
This pronouncement allows us to measure the distance, still found in the decisions of some judges of merit, between the letter of Article 612 bis of the Criminal Code and its rationale of effective protection of the victims of persecutory conduct, highlighting the risks of an overly restrictive interpretation of the case, which ends up emptying the criminal protection against persecutory conduct of its content.
In fact, the “artifice” of disaggregating the episodes and deeming the change of lifestyle habits unproven in the absence of outward demonstrations can turn into a veritable argumentative loophole, apt to frustrate the ratio legis.
An interpretation of the rule in line with Supreme Court jurisprudence, on the contrary, would require assessing the conduct as a whole and in its impact on the victim’s emotional state and self-determination, recognizing that the alteration of habits also includes silent and internalized qualitative changes that are not visible but equally relevant, and preventing the absence of a formal statement by the victim from becoming negative evidence in favor of the defendant.
In the case at hand, the acquittal of the defendant as to the crime of persecutory acts appears to be an expression of an interpretative orientation that, by favoring the formal and material fact of the “change of life habits,” would end up neglecting the psychological and qualitative component of the injury to the freedom of self-determination, which instead constitutes the core of the incriminating case.
Moreover, the analytical breakdown of individual episodes and the requirement for tangible evidence of a radical outward disruption of daily routines appears to depart from that elaboration of the jurisprudence of legitimacy that has recognized central value in the victim’s subjective experience, valuing the internalized and often silent limitations that are likely to profoundly affect freedom of movement and self-determination.
This interpretative gap risks weakening the preventive and repressive scope of the rule, potentially placing it in conflict with Italy’s international obligations, particularly the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention, Law No. 77/2013[11]).
Art. 49 of the Convention requires states to ensure effective protection of victims against all forms of gender-based violence, including persecutory conduct that impairs personal liberty even in ways that are not immediately visible.
Hence the need for a hermeneutics oriented toward restoring to Article 612 bis of the Criminal Code its substantially protective function, enhancing the unity of the conduct and its overall impact on the life of the offended person, and recognizing that the change in living habits cannot be confined to external changes only (in a rigidly quantitative conception), but also includes those psychological and qualitative changes that harm, often in a subtle and progressive manner, the victim’s freedom of self-determination.
References
[1] 1522, <https://www.1522.eu>
[2] ISTAT, Protection for Women Victims of Violence – Years 2021 and 2022 , <https://www.istat.it/comunicato-stampa/il-sistema-di-protezione-per-le-donne-vittime-di-violenza-anni-2021-e-2022/>
[3] ISTAT, The Public Utility Number 1522 – I Quarter 2025 , <https://www.istat.it/tavole-di-dati/il-numero-di-pubblica-utilita-1522-i-trimestre-2025/>
[4] State Police, <https://www.poliziadistato.it/statics/20/report-8-marzo-giornata-internazionale-della-donna.pdf>
[5] ISTAT, The number of victims and forms of violence, < https://www.istat.it/statistiche-per-temi/focus/violenza-sulle-donne/il-fenomeno/violenza-dentro-e-fuori-la-famiglia/il-numero-delle-vittime-e-le-forme-di-violenza/#:~:text=Lo%20stalking%20è%20stato%20subito,16%2C1%25%20delle%20donne>
[6] ISTAT, Stalking Women, <https://www.istat.it/comunicato-stampa/sicurezza-delle-donne-2006/>
[7] ISTAT, The number of victims and forms of violence, <https://www.istat.it/statistiche-per-temi/focus/violenza-sulle-donne/il-fenomeno/violenza-dentro-e-fuori-la-famiglia/il-numero-delle-vittime-e-le-forme-di-violenza/#:~:text=Lo%20stalking%20è%20stato%20subito,16%2C1%25%20delle%20donne>
[8] Cass. Pen, Sec. V, Jan. 22-March 6, 2018, no. 10111.
[9] See Criminal Cass., Sec. V, Feb. 18-July 7, 2025, No. 24726; Criminal Cass., Sec. V, April 3-May 19, 2025, No. 18774; Criminal Cass., Sec. V, Oct. 10, 2024-Jan. 29, 2025, No. 3808; and Criminal Cass., Sec. V, April 22-Aug. 4, 2021, No. 30525.
[10] Ex multis: Cass. Pen. Sec. V, Nov. 27, 2024 – Mar. 10, 2025, No. 9574 and Cass. Pen, Sec. V, Nov. 12, 2024 – Feb. 4, 2025, no. 4546: “the reciprocity of the harassing behavior does not exclude the configurability of the crime of persecutory acts, incumbent on the judge, however, in siffatta hypothesis, a more accurate burden of motivation regarding the existence of the event of harm, that is, the state of anxiety or fear of the alleged offesa person, his effective fear for his own safety or that of persons close to him or the necessity of the change of living habits.”
[11] <https://www.gazzettaufficiale.it/eli/id/2013/07/01/13G00122/sg>
