Migrations in times of economic crisis: Reflections on labour, inequality and imprisonment in Italy
| DOI | 10.1177/14773708211032748 |
| Published date | 01 May 2022 |
| Author | Stefania Crocitti |
| Date | 01 May 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue: Penal changes, crises, and the political economy of punishment |
https://doi.org/10.1177/14773708211032748
European Journal of Criminology
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/14773708211032748
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Migrations in times of
economic crisis: Reflections
on labour, inequality and
imprisonment in Italy
Stefania Crocitti
University of Bologna, Italy
Abstract
The Great Recession (2008–13) produced several changes in migratory flows and stock, return
migration and foreigners’ legal status, employment, involvement in crime and punishment. In the
international context, Italy showed some peculiarities. Unlike other South European countries,
Italy did not experience a great worsening of the working conditions of immigrants. Moving from
the political economy of punishment approaches (in both traditional and recent declinations),
the article describes variations in migration during the recession in Italy, and particularly in
immigrants’ working conditions, in order to discuss whether and how punitivity against foreigners
(measured by incarceration) has been affected by changes in migrants’ inclusion within Italian
society and labour market. The decline in foreigners’ imprisonment is explained by social and
economic forces pertaining not to the whole Italian social structure but to a subsystem reserved
for migrants that I call ‘migrant social structure’.
Keywords
Economic crisis, Italy, migrants’ inclusion, political economy of punishment
Introduction
The Great Recession (2008 to 2013) had an impact on international mobility (Tilly,
2011), including changes in migratory flows and stock, return migration and foreign-
ers’ legal status, employment, involvement in crime and punishment.1 The economic
decline affected social and economic structures globally, but within this context Italy
showed some peculiarities. Notably, unlike other South European countries, Italy did
not see severely worsened migrant working conditions (Fullin and Reyneri, 2013). In
this article I focus on migration during the economic crisis, by discussing whether and
Corresponding author:
Stefania Crocitti, Department of Legal Sciences, University of Bologna, Via Galliera n. 3, Bologna, 40100,
Italy.
Email: stefania.crocitti@unibo.it
1032748EUC0010.1177/14773708211032748European Journal of CriminologyCrocitti
research-article2021
2022, Vol. 19(3) 442–466
Special Issue: Penal changes, crises, and the political economy of punishment
how punitivity against foreigners (measured by imprisonment) may be linked to
changes in migrants’ inclusion in Italian society and the labour market. The research
hypotheses are based on political economy of punishment theories (both classical and
current declinations), taking into account also explanations of mass incarceration in
the United States. Scholars generally agree that, since the 1970s, imprisonment in the
US has governed ethnic minorities and the working poor. Loïc Wacquant (2007) talked
about new law-and-order policies and foresaw that this ‘made in the USA’ punitive
model would be exported to Europe. Because ‘America’s present often foretells
Europe’s future’ (Tonry, 2017: 100), European scholars became interested in under-
standing US trends in incarceration.
In the 1970s, when US prison rates began to increase, the OPEC oil crisis and related
restrictive immigration policies adopted by traditional European receiving countries led
to a ‘migration prohibition’ (Palidda, 2008: 118) in these countries. This policy move did
not stop international mobility but shifted it towards Southern Europe. Meanwhile,
Southern Europe was going through economic development and experiencing demo-
graphic transition. These changes were combined with ‘a low governmental willingness
and capacity to regulate international migration’ (De Haas et al., 2020: 133). These ele-
ments acted as pull factors. In the 1990s, Mediterranean countries shifted their status
from sending to receiving areas and, in recent decades, migration has become a ‘struc-
tural factor’ of their labour markets and societies. At the same time, immigrants increas-
ingly appeared in official crime and prison statistics.
The relationship between migration and the criminal justice system has been analysed
from different standpoints. Some scholars argue that the growth in foreigners’ prison
rates should be linked to the increase in immigration and to the availability of migrants
for criminal opportunities by virtue of their disadvantaged conditions and undocumented
status. Others point out that foreigners’ imprisonment should be explained as ‘selective’
law enforcement for governing the surplus immigration, following the perspective
applied to the mass incarceration of ethnic minorities in the US.
Moving from these paradigms and political economy approaches linking incarcera-
tion to social and economic forces, this article looks at the socioeconomic conditions of
immigrants during the Great Recession for a possible explanation of changes in patterns
of their imprisonment in Italy.
Migrations and the prison system: A comparison of the US
and Europe
Since the 1970s, the growth of prison rates in the US has been astonishing (Table 1): it
mainly involves ethnic minorities and has had ‘devastating effects’ (Tonry, 2011: 1) on
social exclusion and inequality.
Although not reaching US levels, European imprisonment rose at the beginning of the
century, albeit differently in each country, as Table 1 shows. Migration had an impact on
incarceration. The increasing incidence of foreigners in the prison population is clearly
shown in new receiving countries, such as Greece and (to a lesser extent) Spain and Italy.
Scholars studying prison trends in the US and Europe have used a variety of para-
digms.2 The European criminological debate points to an interaction between
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Crocitti
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