Homicides: Victims and perpetrators | Year: 2024

Only the number of male homicide victims is decreasing

In 2024, 327 homicides were recorded, a decrease of 2.1% compared with 2023. Of the victims, 116 were women and 211 were men.

The overall decrease was mainly driven by a reduction in male victims (–2.8% compared with 2023). The number of female victims decreased by one compared with the previous year.

The proportion of homicides in which the perpetrator was identified increased from 89.5% in 2023 to 91.1% in 2024. For female victims, a perpetrator was identified in all cases; in these cases, men accounted for 92.2% of perpetrators. Among male victims, 85.7% were killed by other men (156 out of 182 cases where the perpetrator was known).

Most victims were Italian citizens (74.3%). The proportion of Italian citizens among victims was higher for women (78.4%) than for men.

Among Italian female victims, 93.4% were killed by Italian men. Among foreign female victims, 48.0% were killed by perpetrators of the same nationality.

A total of 62 women were killed by a current or former partner; in 61 of these cases, the perpetrator was a man.

93.4% of Italian women are victims of Italian men, while 48.0% of foreign women are victims of their own compatriots. A total of 62 women were killed by a current or former partner, almost all of whom (61) were men.

This report presents data on intentional homicides recorded by the police in 2024 and entered into the database of the Central Directorate of Criminal Police of the Ministry of the Interior. Where available and known, this information also indicates the relationship between the homicide victim and the perpetrator, making it possible to reconstruct the motive, the manner in which the victim was killed and the type of weapon used, if any. This is particularly important in studying the dynamics of homicides of women and men, which, as is well known, differ significantly. Other information useful for estimating femicides has been added to these data.

Higher homicide rates in Italy than in the rest of Europe

The rise in homicides following the Covid-19 pandemic has come to an end. After two consecutive years of increase, intentional homicides are once again on the decline. More precisely, in 2023, there were 334 cases, while in 2024 the number of victims stood at 327 (-2.1% compared to 2023 and +6.2% compared to 2019, the year before the pandemic). However, our country remains among those with the lowest historical risk in the European Union.  

The EU average homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023 (the latest year available) is 0.91 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. Among the 26 countries that provide data for this year, Italy has the lowest incidence of this phenomenon (0.57) together with Slovenia, after Malta (whose small population makes the data very unstable) and ahead of Ireland and Poland (0.64 and 0.72 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively).

At the opposite end of the spectrum are the Baltic countries, Luxembourg and France, with rates ranging from 2.62 in Lithuania to 1.30 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in France.

In recent years, Europe has seen a general decline in intentional homicides, mainly due to the decrease in the Baltic countries. The EU homicide rate per population was 1.03 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2015 and fell to 0.91 homicides in 2023. In France, a large European country with the highest homicide rate, the rate fell from 1.31 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in the three-year period 2013-2015 to 1.19 in the three-year period 2021-2023. in Italy, during the same period, the rate fell from 0.80 to 0.54 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. Conversely, during the same period in Germany and Spain, homicide rates did not decrease, remaining below the European average at 0.86 and 0.66 victims per 100,000 inhabitants respectively.