Not Citizens, Not Real People. The Italian Way of Governing Immigration through the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

The aim of this article is to describe the specious use made of the Italian criminal justice system as a device to manage the demands for security due to the general perception of increased immigration flows in Italy. In particular, the article analyses - in each stage of the penal system from substantive criminal law, through criminal procedure law, to the prison system - the connection between the processes of criminalization and the use of extrajudicial measures to control immigration flows (such as border controls and expulsions). The results suggest that this criminal ‘double track’ (Italian citizens on the one side and migrants on the other) - with the subsequent hyper-incarceration of aliens and their final deportation as a consequence of the breach of either or both administrative and criminal law -is a disguised but deliberate choice of recent Italian legislative policy regarding the justice system.