Children and young adults raised in mafia families will be given a chance to break away from organised crime under new legislation in Italy that aims to stop the intergenerational recruitment of gangsters.

In an unprecedented effort to sever the family chain, the Italian state will offer children aged under 25 and other close relatives of mafia bosses a chance to start over: a new home in another city, a new school and, if necessary, a new identity.

On Wednesday, the “free to choose” bill won final approval in the senate. “Today, parliament is translating into law a dream that for years seemed impossible,” said Chiara Colosimo, the president of the parliamentary anti-mafia commission.

About 400 children born into mafia families are expected to enter the programme each year, according to Colosimo.

In many Italian mafia clans, power is passed from one generation to the next. While hereditary succession is not a fixed rule in Sicily’s Cosa Nostra or in the Neapolitan Camorra, it is deeply embedded in the culture of the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, one of the world’s most powerful criminal organisations, where the son of a boss is often expected to inherit his father’s position as the head of the clan.

These blood ties have long made the ’Ndrangheta exceptionally difficult to penetrate and largely resistant to the system of pentiti – former mafia members who choose to cooperate with the authorities.

For many, confessing the crimes of their clan would mean betraying not only fellow gangsters, but their own fathers, grandfathers and uncles. Despite sweeping arrests and a succession of maxi trials involving hundreds of defendants, the organisation has proved remarkably resilient. As fathers and grandfathers serve life sentences, often in high-security prisons, sons and other younger relatives are increasingly taking their place, often while still in their teens.

After becoming president of the youth court in Reggio Calabria in 2011, Roberto Di Bella launched an unprecedented probation scheme allowing authorities to remove children from the most dangerous ’Ndrangheta families and relocate them until they turned 18. Supported by educators, social workers and psychologists, they were helped to complete their education and build a life away from organised crime. Parents who continued to draw their children into criminal activity risked losing parental rights. Di Bella called the programme Liberi di Scegliere – meaning free to choose.

The initiative provoked a backlash. Di Bella was accused of tearing families apart and denounced by politicians, commentators and parts of the church, who argued that removing children from their parents, regardless of the circumstances, amounted to an assault on the family. One jailed mafia boss sent the judge a thinly veiled threat, reminding him that everyone had children.

Yet the programme received support from unexpected quarters. Di Bella said mothers from ’Ndrangheta families, including the wives of powerful bosses, had begun secretly asking him to remove their sons from Calabria, telling him they feared they would otherwise end up in prison or dead.

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The law prioritises keeping mothers and children together, provided the mother agrees to cut ties with the mafia. Families are relocated to a protected location outside their home region. If the mother remains involved with the clan, children are placed with vetted foster families or, where necessary, in protected care homes, where they receive education and psychological support.

“Today, we don’t just celebrate the approval of a law; today, we celebrate the victory of freedom,” said Luigi Ciotti, an anti-mafia priest and campaigner who voiced “enormous joy for a law protecting those who leave mafia environments”.

“It is the right law,” said Salvatore Vella, the chief prosecutor in Gela, Sicily, one of the island’s historic criminal strongholds. “It recognises that defeating the mafia is not just about policing, but also about culture and the social environment.”

Of course, challenges remain. “I worry it risks remaining largely on paper,” Vella said, warning that the new law placed responsibility for providing safe housing, financial support and, where necessary, new identities on the state’s beleaguered central protection service. “Without additional funding, staff and specialist support, I fear it will struggle to deliver, especially when Italy’s local social services are already overstretched.”