Victimization of young foreigners in Italy
| Date | 01 May 2021 |
| Author | Luisa Ravagnani,Nicoletta Policek,Carlo A. Romano |
| DOI | 10.1177/1477370819850963 |
| Published date | 01 May 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370819850963
European Journal of Criminology
2021, Vol. 18(3) 407 –425
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370819850963
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Victimization of young
foreigners in Italy
Nicoletta Policek
University of Cumbria, UK; University of Brescia, Italy
Luisa Ravagnani and Carlo A. Romano
University of Brescia, Italy
Abstract
This article reports on data collected in Italy as part of the International Self-Report Delinquency
Study 3 (ISRD-3). Specifically, we examine whether being a young foreigner in Italy is a relevant
factor in experiencing victimization. We found that having one or both parents who are foreign
translates for young people into a highly critical experience of victimization. However, their
experiences are varied and complex. This research thus contributes to the necessity to account
for the diversification of such experiences and the everyday negotiations within which young
foreigners become visible and able to produce community and nation.
Keywords
Foreigners, Italy, victimization, young offenders
Introduction
The issue of the victimization of young people has increased in research visibility
(Finkelhor, 2008; Radford et al., 2013), remaining, however, largely overlooked with
regard to young foreigners.1 Although some pioneering victim survey work, for exam-
ple by Anderson et al.’ (1994) in the UK,2 had contributed to shifting the research
focus, by establishing that criminal acts against young people are committed with
alarming frequency, little is known about the experience of victimization amongst
young foreigners. At international comparative level, a series of victimization surveys
(Enzmann et al., 2010) has begun to bring aspects of foreign youth victimization to the
Corresponding author:
Nicoletta Policek, Department of Business, Law, Policing and Social Science, University of Cumbria, Fusehill
Street Campus, Carlisle, CA1 1HH, UK.
Email: nicoletta.policek@cumbria.ac.uk
850963EUC0010.1177/1477370819850963European Journal of CriminologyPolicek et al.
research-article2019
Article
408 European Journal of Criminology 18(3)
fore, both academically and politically, but it generally remains the case that the attri-
bution of offender is more readily applied than that of victim (Andreescu, 2013).
In Italy, the study of the criminalization and imprisonment of young foreigners (Melossi
and Giovannetti, 2002), together with the varied interventions regarding unaccompanied
minors (Petti, 2004) or the actions of ‘preventive repression’ carried out by the police
against young foreigners (Andall, 2003), all highlight some aspects of the institutional
processes of discrimination as experienced by young foreign nationals residing in the
country. Resting on a delicate balance between the paths of exclusion and the paths of
integration, the power of the ‘labelling’ processes that inexorably equate foreigner to
criminal (Guia et al., 2011) results in young foreigners living in Italy facing victimization
and struggling to find and create inclusive forms of belonging and citizenship. Wrongly
accounted as the human surplus requiring a ‘zero tolerance’ approach, foreigners, and
young foreigners in particular, encompass what Simon et al. (2008) dub the ‘crime deal’,
which reflects a society that excludes social recovery and social justice for the less power-
ful. This approach seems to almost justify racism, with police forces often adopting racial
profiling as an instrument of repression and control (Rypi et al., 2018).
This article draws on intersectionality (Crenshaw et al., 1995; Delgado and Stefancic,
2012; Ladson-Billings, 1998) and critical race theory (CRT), which views racism as a
reality deeply engrained in the fabric of our societies, to explain how differences are
perceived and reproduced. CRT incorporates the notion that racism is a natural feature of
everyday life rather than an aberration, thus advocating an open discussion to enhance
solutions that tackle it from the victims’ perspectives. One of the critical tenets of CRT is
that the white privileged majority silences minority communities and that this silencing
affords the white population power (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012; Gillborn, 2014).
Critical race theorists have engaged with intersectional theory (Crenshaw, 1989), result-
ing in greater attention being paid to how other social dimensions such as age, geo-
graphical location, class and gender, amongst other social constrainers, intersect with
race and ethnicity to cause disadvantage. Through the literature review we found that the
lack of attention paid to young people, race and ethnicity seems to be symptomatic of a
broader problem: young people’s agency and the denial of experiences of discrimination
and victimization. Indeed, most works on race and ethnicity have focused on adults’
perspectives, omitting accounts of young people’s experiences, with a few exceptions –
for example, Chakraborti and Garland (2004), who, however, overlook the intersection
of age with race and place. Hopkins (2010), by contrast, introduces the ways in which
young people’s experiences are challenged on a daily basis by social factors, such as
race, geography, social class and identity. He uses an intersectional approach but does
not focus explicitly on race. Finally, Nayak’s work (2016), although broadly focusing on
young foreign nationals and their experiences, examines how these experiences occur in
urban settlements, but neglects the experiences of young people in rural settings.
According to the Italian National Institute for Statistics (Istat, 2017), as of 31
December 2017 Italy had 60,483,973 inhabitants, more than 5 million of whom had for-
eign citizenship: 8.5 percent at national level (10.7 percent in Central-northern regions,
4.2 percent in the South and Islands area). Data processing from Istat (2017) highlights
that on 1 January 2017 there were 1,038,046 (53,783 male and 49,9171 female) young
foreign nationals residing in Italy. Looking at statistical data from 2002 to 2017 we see
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