Immigration Detention as Social Defence: Policing ‘Dangerous Mobility’ in Italy
| Author | Giuseppe Campesi,Giulia Fabini |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480619859350 |
| Published date | 01 February 2020 |
| Date | 01 February 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480619859350
Theoretical Criminology
2020, Vol. 24(1) 50 –70
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1362480619859350
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Immigration Detention as
Social Defence: Policing
‘Dangerous Mobility’ in Italy
Giuseppe Campesi
University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’, Italy
Giulia Fabini
Universita degli Studi di Bologna, Italy
Abstract
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’.
Keywords
Crime prevention, dangerousness, deportation, immigration detention, policing, risk,
social defence
Corresponding author:
Giuseppe Campesi, University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’, Corso Italia 23, Bari, 70123, Italy.
Email: giuseppe.campesi@uniba.it
859350TCR0010.1177/1362480619859350Theoretical CriminologyCampesi and Fabini
research-article2019
Article
Campesi and Fabini 51
Introduction
Immigration law and criminal law have somewhat similar functions in defining the
boundaries of ‘belonging’. This affinity has been strengthened in recent decades when,
in parallel with a progressive tightening of migration controls, we have witnessed what
contemporary political and social scientists regard as a process of securitization and
criminalization of migration (Guild, 2009; Huysmans, 2006; Palidda, 2013). The com-
plex relationship between migration and criminal justice policies has been explored by
many (Aliverti, 2012; Bosworth, 2019; Bosworth et al., 2018; Franko Aas and Bosworth,
2013; Legomsky, 2007; Stumpf, 2006). Situating his argument in the context of a rich
historical reconstruction of US deportation law, Daniel Kanstroom (2007) has suggested
that the coercive measures provided for by immigration law should not be regarded only
as a means of migration control. He argues that, given their impact on migrants’ personal
liberty and the use that has been made of them in the course of history, deportation and
immigration detention should instead be considered as a flexible means for enacting
criminal policies outside the legal framework of criminal law. Kanstroom’s hypothesis,
in short, is that deportation law can be used against migrants to achieve objectives that
are legally impossible or otherwise more difficult to achieve through the ordinary social
control tools provided for by criminal law.
Many other scholars have advanced similar hypotheses by observing that the connec-
tions between policing and immigration have expanded as a consequence of the increased
blurring of criminal justice and migration governance (Parmar, 2018). The point seems
to be that immigration law provides the police with a more easily navigable alternative
to the criminal law for dealing with minor offences (Fabini, 2017; Weber, 2012; Weber
and Pickering, 2013) or pursuing anti-terrorism objectives (Roach, 2011), and this is
precisely the core of our argument here.
Drawing on the results of an empirical study carried out in Italy, in this article we
will contend that in a context shaped by reduced capacity within the Italian immigration
detention system, pre-removal detention is being used selectively with the main aim of
removing from the public sphere some categories of migrants deemed as particularly
‘undesirable’ because of their ‘social marginality’ or supposed ‘social dangerousness’.
Our argument is twofold: (1) that immigration detention has been transformed into an
instrument of crime prevention and ‘social defence’—aimed at protecting society from
dangerous individuals; and (2) that this transformation, fuelled by the central position
that the legal categories of ‘risk’ and ‘danger’ have assumed in the regulation of the
return procedure, is particularly visible in the practices of Italian immigration law
enforcement agencies, all of which have been given wide discretion in defining ‘dan-
gerous mobility’.
In particular, we use the concept of ‘dangerous mobility’ to refer to a complex set of
arguments, rhetoric and justifications mobilized by immigration law enforcement agen-
cies responsible for return procedures to justify the adoption of coercive measures affect-
ing migrants’ personal freedom. The research presented in this article shows that the
rhetoric of dangerousness is used to make subtle distinctions between ‘reliable’ and ‘dan-
gerous’ migrants from whom ‘society must be defended’ (Foucault, 2003). Our idea is
that by defining a specific ‘dangerous mobility’ the police can make use of immigration
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