Beyond the ‘Criminalisation’ of Immigrants: Critical Criminology and the Modern Deportation Regime
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Author | SARAH TOSH |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12429 |
The Howard Journal Vol60 No 3. September 2021 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12429
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 409–429
Beyond the ‘Criminalisation’ of
Immigrants: Critical Criminology
and the Modern Deportation Regime
SARAH TOSH
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal
Justice, Rutgers University-Camden, USA
Abstract: Despite a long-standing body of research contradicting stereotypes that link mi-
gration with crime, the image of immigrant as criminal has routinely been used to buttress
punitive policy across the globe – particularly within the past 30 years. While the United
States is the world leader in rates of deportation, recent decades have also seen renewed
anti-immigrant sentiment, punitive immigration enforcement, and increased deportation
in migrant-receiving countries around the world. Expanding on existing scholarship that
disentangles the mechanisms through which migrants are affected by processes otherwise
reserved for ‘criminals’, this article demonstrates how the concepts and perspectives of
critical criminology are vital to a full understanding of the modern deportation regime.
Beyond effects on migrants themselves, I argue that the current deportation regime is
harmful for all potential subjects of social control, in its uncritical acceptance and im-
plicit reification of broader societal notions of who and what is ‘criminal’.
Keywords: critical criminology; deportation; immigration enforcement; migra-
tion policy
In response to the continual melding of crime and border control in
migrant-receiving countries around the world, a broad field of scholarship
on ‘crimmigration’ law and enforcement (Stumpf 2006) has emerged.
This interdisciplinary body of literature is significant in its attention to the
systemic and individual outcomes of the intertwining of criminal and mi-
gration law, as well as its examination of the specific mechanisms through
which migrants are processed, punished and excluded. In grappling with
the broader social construction of ‘crime’ and ‘criminality’, critical crim-
inology makes key contributions to this field of study. With an emphasis
on the role of cultural and structural context in explaining both illicit
behaviours and the social control with which they are met, critical crim-
inologists go beyond describing delinquency and punishment, to assess
the processes through which acts and people are labelled criminal in the
first place. Combining Marxist perspectives that stress the importance of
409
C
2021 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
The Howard Journal Vol60 No 3. September 2021
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 409–429
structural inequality in constructing conceptions of criminality, with cul-
tural theories highlighting the expressive meaning in deviant behaviour,
critical criminology allows for the simultaneously situated investigation
of social control apparatuses and those who they target, nuancing theo-
risations on the connections between crime control and border control.
Further, as such connections continue to solidify throughout the United
States and Europe, attention to crimmigration processes and outcomes is
equally vital for the study of critical criminology.
This article examines the utility of critical criminology in the study of
modern crimmigration regimes, as well as the centrality of crimmigra-
tion as a modern focus of the discipline. Following existing scholarship
that disentangles the mechanisms through which migrants come to be
affected by processes otherwise reserved for ‘criminals’, I argue for a
critical understanding of the ‘criminalisation’ of migrants that includes the
deconstruction of broader conceptions of crime and criminality.With roots
in Marxist theories outlining the relationship between punishment and
structural inequality, and the more recent development of overlapping
subfields of Southern and postcolonial criminology, critical criminology
provides valuable insight into the ways in which systems of crimmigration
reproduce and maintain existing racial, ethnic and class-based hierar-
chies. The critical criminological concepts of moral panic and othering are
central for an understanding of the way in which societal tropes and fears
rooted in these hierarchies – such as those surrounding the ‘criminal alien’
– shape concepts of criminality and the punitive systems they underlay.
Critical criminology also restores agency to those criminalised – including
migrants and others convicted of non-immigration crimes – portraying
crime as an expressive response to parallel systematic processes of cultural
inclusion and structural exclusion.
The following section describes the development of today’s deportation
regime, as part of a punitive turn in criminal justice policy more generally.
While focused on the United States – home to the most extensive system
of immigration detention and removal in the world – this background also
includes examples from Western European states and other immigration-
receiving nations. This is followed by a section outlining the current lit-
erature on the ‘criminalisation’ of migrants, and explaining the need to
move beyond examining how immigrants are treated as criminal, to de-
constructing broader ideas around crime and criminality. Next, I provide
a brief synopsis of the origins and major elements of critical criminology,
before demonstrating the importance of the discipline’s concepts for the
study of crimmigration, as well as the centrality of crimmigration connec-
tions for the field of critical criminology today. This analysis is organised
into three areas of relevant critical criminological thought: (i) punishment
and inequality; (ii) moral panics, folk devils and othering; and (iii) crime
as cultural adaptation. Ultimately, I argue that beyond effects on migrants
themselves, modern systems of crimmigration enforcement and deporta-
tion are harmful for all potential subjects of social control, in their uncritical
acceptance and implicit reification of broader societal notions of who and
what is ‘criminal’.
410
C
2021 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
