Criminalization or instrumentalism? New trends in the field of border criminology
| Author | José A Brandariz |
| DOI | 10.1177/13624806211009158 |
| Published date | 01 May 2022 |
| Date | 01 May 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13624806211009158
Theoretical Criminology
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/13624806211009158
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Criminalization or
instrumentalism? New
trends in the field of border
criminology
José A Brandariz
University of A Coruna, Spain
Abstract
The crimmigration literature has underlined the increasing merging of criminal law
and immigration law practices and procedures. Border criminology literature, in
turn, has recently scrutinized the penal scenario in which this alleged fusion is taking
place. Both pieces of scholarship, though, largely overlook the agonistic coexistence
of border control interests and crime prevention aims, as well as the preference
given to immigration enforcement arrangements over criminal law procedures in
many jurisdictions. By drawing on a number of cases mainly—albeit not exclusively—
taken from Spanish crimmigration policies, this article examines what may be called
the ‘instrumentalism’ strategies that are notably transforming crime control practices
targeting noncitizens, and the criminal justice system in its entirety.
Keywords
border criminology, crimmigration, crimmigration instrumentalism, criminalization of
immigration law
Introduction: Crimmigration and border criminology
The crimmigration thesis (García Hernández, 2013, 2018; Stumpf, 2006, 2013, 2015) has
significantly impacted academic conversations on immigration enforcement, and to a
lesser extent criminal law enforcement over the last decade. In developing its assump-
tions, this analytical perspective has partly built on a wider body of scholarship that has
Corresponding author:
José A Brandariz, University of A Coruna, Facultade de Dereito, Campus de Elvina, s/n, A Coruna, 15071, Spain.
Email: jabrandariz@yahoo.de
1009158TCR0010.1177/13624806211009158Theoretical CriminologyBrandariz
research-article2021
Article
2022, Vol. 26(2) 285–303
largely portrayed the phenomenon under study as the ‘criminalization’ of immigration law
and migration enforcement (Chacón, 2012; Ewing et al., 2015; Mitsilegas, 2015).
Originally focused on the US mobility control landscape, crimmigration theses have sub-
sequently been used to explore law enforcement practices elsewhere, namely in European
countries (Van der Leun and Van der Woude, 2013; Van der Woude et al., 2014, 2017).
More recently, a number of criminology and socio-legal scholars have begun to
develop an emerging academic sub-field, which may be called border criminology (or,
criminology of mobility) (Bosworth, 2016, 2017; Bosworth et al., 2018a; Pickering
et al., 2015). The perspective of this scholarly endeavour is broader than that of crim-
migration authors (Bosworth, 2019; see also Stumpf, 2020), since it aims to explore not
only crimmigration legal arrangements, but also the political, cultural and social drives
fostering the convergence of crime prevention and border control schemes. In widening
its analytical lens, border criminology has managed to unveil the increasing global
dimension of a penal sub-system the impact of which is felt far beyond national borders
(Aas, 2013; Bowling and Sheptycki, 2015; Franko, 2017, 2020). In addition, scholars
working in this field have stressed the exclusionary orientation of penal arrangements
dealing with noncitizens (Barker, 2017a; Bosworth et al., 2018a; Franko, 2020), in the
framework of the gradual consolidation of a dual criminal justice system in which for-
eign clienteles are excluded from penal welfarism practices (Turnbull and Hasselberg,
2017; Ugelvik and Damsa, 2018; Weber, 2015). Moreover, this literature has challenged
conventional accounts on punitiveness, highlighting that prison-focused indicators such
as incarceration rates fail to provide an accurate assessment on the scale and intensity of
state coercion policies (Barker, 2017a, 2018; Bosworth, 2017, 2019; Franko, 2020).
Despite giving shape to particularly fruitful and promising perspectives on the ways
in which human mobility phenomena are coercively managed by the criminal justice
system, both the crimmigration and the border criminology literatures have left some
dimensions of this immigration–penality nexus largely unexplored. As has been sug-
gested by various authors (Bosworth et al., 2018a; Van der Woude et al., 2017), this
shortcoming might be partly overcome by encouraging scholars to engage in compara-
tive explorations of crimmigration changes. This article contributes to bridge this ana-
lytical gap by taking into consideration certain dimensions of the alleged fusion of
immigration law and criminal law to provide an account of a number of migration con-
trol changes emerging in various European regions. In so doing, it unveils the shortcom-
ings of the theses emphasizing that global North jurisdictions are currently witnessing
both a criminalization of migration enforcement policies and an ‘immigrationization’ of
penal policies.
For these purposes, the article proceeds as follows. Initially, it approaches the various
dimensions of crimmigration changes, as well as the relative autonomy of immigration
control and crime control practices. Subsequently, it addresses a variety of aspects of the
‘instrumentalism’ strategies characterizing crimmigration policies in Europe. This analy-
sis is mainly based on Spanish cases, but it also considers similar law enforcement
arrangements implemented in other European jurisdictions. In addressing those aspects,
this essay aims to contribute to the kind of cross-national conversation that is urgently
needed in the field of border criminology (Franko, 2020). Finally, the article reflects
upon a number of conclusions to be drawn from recent crimmigration changes.
286 Theoretical Criminology 26(2)
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