Immigration Detention as Social Defence: Policing ‘Dangerous Mobility' in Italy

Drawing on an empirical study, this article explores the role of immigration detention in Italy by analysing the way a specific rhetoric of ‘dangerousness' has developed and is being used within the framework of immigration enforcement policies. Our argument is that immigration detention has be...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Campesi, Giuseppe 1977- (Author) ; Fabini, Giulia (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2020
In: Theoretical criminology
Year: 2020, Volume: 24, Issue: 1, Pages: 50-70
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:Drawing on an empirical study, this article explores the role of immigration detention in Italy by analysing the way a specific rhetoric of ‘dangerousness' has developed and is being used within the framework of immigration enforcement policies. Our argument is that immigration detention has been transformed into an instrument of crime prevention and ‘social defence', and that this transformation is fuelled by the central position that the legal categories of ‘risk' and ‘danger' have assumed in the regulation of the return procedure. The article contends that immigration law enforcement agencies can make use of immigration detention as a flexible control tool to manage what are perceived as the most problematic populations in urban areas, thus practising a policy of selective enforcement that while not explicitly built along racial and ethnic lines, clearly discriminates among migrants according to their ‘social marginality' or supposed ‘social dangerousness'.
ISSN:1461-7439
DOI:10.1177/1362480619859350