SECURING PLACES OF WORSHIP BEYOND EXTREMISM: LESSONS FROM MILAN

Beyond the threat of extremism, religious places of worship face daily threats of vandalism and theft as ‘soft targets’ for crime due to their openness to the public. On 13 January 2026, more than 30 Italian religious leaders, community practitioners, and public authorities met at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy, for a capacity-building workshop on the protection of places of worship regarding non-extremist threats. The event was organised within the EU-funded project PARTESS-COM and jointly delivered by Transcrime, joint research centre on innovation and crime at Università Cattolica, and Enhancing Faith Institutions - both cooperation partners in the PARTESS-COM project consortium.

The central message of the workshop was clear: effective security management in places of worship requires moving beyond an exclusive focus on hate crime and extremism and also paying systematic attention to everyday, non-ideological risks. These routine incidents are more frequent, and their cumulative impact can endanger sacred places and religious communities. However, they are also more predictable, and often more manageable through low-cost, community-based measures.

In this regard     , the Milan workshop showed how a broader understanding of risk, combined with ‘soft’ security and better reporting practices, can strengthen the resilience of religious communities without undermining openness and accessibility. For religious leaders and policymakers alike, this means that improving security does not      require expensive technologies, but clearer routines, better coordination, and stronger cooperation.

In particular, three main insights emerged from the discussion.

Places of worship face a plurality of everyday risks

Public and policy debates on the security of places of worship tend to concentrate primarily on extremist or terrorist attacks and hate-crimes. This is understandable. These events have a high potential for negative impacts and attract significant political and media attention. However, risk cannot be assessed only in terms of impact. It depends on both the seriousness of an event and its likelihood. While extremist violence may cause severe damage, its likelihood remains, relatively low in many contexts.

By contrast, places of worship are regularly affected by a wide range of non-ideological incidents such as theft, vandalism, minor aggression, and accidental damage. These events are less visible and often treated as marginal, thus receiving limited attention in security policies and investments. However, their cumulative consequences can be substantial because they generate financial losses, damage to cultural and religious heritage, interruption of activities, and a persistent sense of insecurity that weakens community life over time (Dugato and Carbone 2024).

To illustrate this point empirically, during the Milan workshop, Transcrime presented preliminary findings from a media-based analysis of security incidents affecting places of worship in Italy between 2020 and 2025. The analysis excluded ideological, political, or hate-motivated events and therefore focused only on non-ideological security incidents.

In this five-year period, Italian media reported 455 incidents. As the data does not include incidents that never reached media or law-enforcement attention, they should be read as a conservative baseline rather than a full count. Within this sample, 53 per cent of incidents involved theft of money, personal belongings, or other items; 21 per cent concerned more organised thefts targeting art, metals, or relics; 18 per cent involved vandalism; and around 4 per cent involved aggression, harassment, or drug-related activities. The remaining cases referred to non-criminal incidents, such as structural failures or technical malfunctions.

Overall, these figures indicate that the security challenges faced by religious communities are varied and, in most cases, ordinary rather than exceptional. Therefore, security policies and resources should reflect the full spectrum of risks, recognising that the steady accumulation of routine incidents can erode community confidence as much as rare extreme events.

Routine risks can be addressed through everyday prevention and ‘soft’ security

Understanding this broader risk landscape is a first step; the next question is how communities can respond in ways that are proportionate, sustainable, and consistent with their values. The Italian data suggest that many incidents exploit predictable vulnerabilities such as unattended donation boxes, poorly supervised entrances, unclear boundaries between public and restricted spaces, or limited visibility in peripheral areas. Recognising the routine and poorly planned nature of many events       reveals an important opportunity. If threats are often low-tech and opportunistic, their prevention can also be practical and feasible.

This finding is particularly relevant given the financial constraints faced by many faith communities. Indeed, according to the results of the EU-funded SOAR project, inadequate funding to acquire or maintain security and safety resources remains one of the primary challenges for faith institutions across Europe. This was also stressed by many participants in the workshop. In this context, approaches that rely on everyday practices rather than expensive infrastructure are especially valuable.

For example, during the workshop Transcrime introduced the Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) approach as a useful framework for thinking about everyday prevention. SCP does not focus on identifying or countering offenders’ motivations, but on reducing opportunities for crime by shaping the immediate environment (Clarke 1997; Cornish and Clarke 2003). This perspective is closely linked to the concept of Security by Design, which was also discussed in the training. Rather than presenting these approaches in abstract terms, the workshop linked them directly to the daily operation of places of worship.

Practical examples discussed included:

• Ensuring a consistent welcome and access role during services and events, combining hospitality with informal supervision;

• Improving natural surveillance through lighting, clear sightlines, and visible separation between public and restricted areas;

• Using clear signage and shared routines in multi-use buildings;

• Maintaining buildings and surrounding areas to signal care and guardianship.

EFI further complemented this discussion with scenario-based exercises, basic vulnerability assessments, and guidance on event planning and crisis communication.

These measures were framed as ‘soft’ security. They do not rely on visible fortification, coercive control, or advanced technologies but on design choices, organisational routines, and social presence. The workshop also emphasised that well-designed soft security can reduce risk while supporting, rather than undermining, the openness and sacred character of the places of worship, when developed with communities and aligned with their values.

For policymakers, this implies that funding schemes and support programmes should not focus exclusively on counter-terrorism measures, but also support basic environmental improvements, volunteer training, and coordination mechanisms.

Under-reporting is a security problem, not only a data issue

A third key insight concerned under-reporting. Many religious communities tend to manage incidents informally. Damage is repaired quietly, costs are absorbed internally, and formal reporting is sometimes avoided to prevent stigma, unwanted attention or due to mistrust in public authorities’ effectiveness. While understandable, this practice has direct security implications.

When incidents are not reported, patterns remain invisible. Law-enforcement agencies or authorities may underestimate the scale and frequency of problems affecting places of worship. This can lead to lower prioritisation within local or national security agendas and limited allocation of resources. Under-reporting can also weaken communication and trust between religious organisations and public authorities, leaving communities isolated from the wider local community (Dugato and Carbone 2024).

Beyond stressing the importance of reporting any threats or incidents to the authorities, EFI introduced the participants to the Faith Guardian, a reporting and information-sharing platform developed within PARTESS-COM. The tool supports structured incident reporting and the exchange of experiences among faith communities and public authorities. Its value goes beyond data collection. By offering a shared language to describe incidents in a clear and comparable way, the platform lowers the threshold for reporting and collaboration. Over time, routine reporting can help communities shift from a reactive stance to a more prepared and coordinated approach.

Why the Italian case matters beyond Italy?

Although rooted in a specific national context, the conclusions of the workshop are relevant beyond Italy. First, the Italian case illustrates how deeply places of worship are embedded in everyday social life. Religious buildings are often located in dense urban areas or small communities and are used daily. This embeddedness increases exposure to routine risks and makes purely defensive security models difficult to apply or less effective.

Second, it highlights governance challenges that are common across Europe. Responsibility for the security of places of worship is often fragmented among religious organisations, municipalities, heritage authorities, and law-enforcement agencies. Without coordination, this fragmentation can create gaps in prevention and response.

Third, the Italian case shows how different factors combine to shape vulnerability of places of worship, including multifunctionality of the buildings, volunteer-based management, ageing structures, high symbolic value, and uneven access to public support, especially for minority religious communities and those with weaker organisational structures. These conditions are shared by many faith communities across different countries and denominations.

For these reasons, Italy should be seen as an illustrative case rather than an exception. The Milan workshop demonstrated that effective security for places of worship is not based on single solutions or exceptional measures. It emerges from the accumulation of everyday practices: realistic risk awareness, soft and community-based prevention, and shared reporting pathways. Together, these elements can strengthen resilience while respecting the social, cultural, and spiritual role of places of worship.

Further reading:

• Clarke, Ronald V., ed. 1997. Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies. 2. ed. Harrow and Heston.

• Cornish, Derek B., and Ronald V. Clarke. 2003. Opportunities, Precipitators and Criminal Decisions: A Reply to Wortley’s Critique of Situational Crime Prevention. Criminal Justice Press.

• Siadkowski, Adrian Karol, Łukasz Szymankiewicz, Karol Kujawa, and Szymon Bańka, eds. 2022. Security by Design Guidebook for Religious Sites. WSB University in Dąbrowa Górnicza.

  
  

Marco Dugato is Senior Researcher at Transcrime and Adjunct Professor at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy. He holds a PhD in Criminology and a MA in Sociology. He has coordinated several national and international research projects on crime and security issues. His main research fields are spatial analysis of crime; urban security; crime and criminal justice statistics; organized crime and illicit markets.

Alessandro Corti is a PhD candidate in the International Doctorate in Criminology at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy, and Researcher at Transcrime. He holds an LLB in European Law, LLM in International and Transnational Criminal Law, and MSc in Public Policy (UNU-MERIT). Experiences include IOM Cairo, ICC Investigative Division, and public affairs roles. Research focuses: organised crime, migration-related crimes, international crimes.