Il minore vittima di reato

[Autom. eng. transl.] In the context of a criminal law doctrine that dedicates prevalent attention to the minor age in relation to the offender, the work "The minor victim of crime" is the expression of a different study approach: while enhancing the victim's point of view, at the same time it poses clearly highlight the multi-faceted nature of criminal events involving minors. The object of further study is the most recent Italian criminal legislation. Essential for this purpose, is a preliminary recognition of the main international sources in the matter of minors, in consideration of the propulsive role that they have played and that they continue to play for the development of uniform legislation, both on a substantial and procedural level. The decisive contribution of international law is well exemplified by the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989, which identifies the child as a subject of rights, holder of autonomous legal positions distinct from those of the family unit to which they belong. Among the national sources of juvenile criminal law, special attention is devoted to the Republican Constitution of 1948 which, in addition to stating the inviolable rights of which even the child of age, as a person, is the owner, outlines a conception of the family as a finalized social formation to the promotion and development of its components, especially if they are minors. Based on these premises, the study conducted cannot neglect to denounce the backwardness of some types of crime present in the penal code. The crimes of abuse of the means of correction, of maltreatment in the family or towards children and incest are indicated, among others, as emblematic and still persistent expressions of the authoritarian imprint of the Rocco code, in which instances of protection and protection of the child they seem to succumb to publicist interests. Only an adaptive interpretation of the aforementioned cases makes it possible to overcome the anachronistic view of the family as an "institution" in favor of a new conception of the same as a place where constitutional principles can find concrete implementation. The criminal justice scenario shows the interpreter the child as a weak subject, a victim of criminal behavior that has recently been characterized by a marked danger. Different forms of slavery aimed at exploitation, commodification, aggression in the sexual sphere of minors have called for repressive strategies by the penal legislator. Particular attention is dedicated to sexual violence, including group violence, to the crime of sexual acts with a minor and to the controversial cases of child pornography, which offer the opportunity for a critical comparison between the indications coming from international sources and the more intransigent choices adopted by the Italian legislator. On the procedural level, then, the guarantees that the law recognizes to the child, be it victim or witness of crime, are illustrated through adjustments and exceptions of the discipline dictated generally for the adult. Institutes such as the evidentiary accident and the testimony of the minor are emblematic proof of the difficult task of reconciling the requests for seeking the truth and protecting the minor involved in various ways in a criminal proceeding. The analysis carried out makes it possible to observe that, despite the differentiated paths that the legislative sources have on several levels traced in the interest of the minor and the growing attention of criminal justice, in the absence of adequate social policies they cannot be placed in the criminal instrument anyway the aspirations to guarantee the assistance and support that the peculiar condition of the minor age requires.