1st Edition

Racial Criminalization of Migrants in the 21st Century

Edited By Salvatore Palidda Copyright 2011
    328 Pages
    by Routledge

    326 Pages
    by Routledge

    Over the last two decades in the West, there has been a significant increase in the arrest, imprisonment and detention of migrants. The racial criminalization and victimization of migrants and Roma people has led judicial authorities, local governments, the police, mass media and the general population to perceive migrants and 'gypsies' as responsible for a wide range of offences. Taking into consideration the political and cultural conditions that affect and interconnect societies of emigration and immigration, the contributors examine and compare a range of cases in Europe and the United States. The contributions demonstrate how the persecution of the 'current enemy' is the 'total political fact' of the 21st century in that it ensures consensus and business, or what might be termed the 'crime deal' of today. This provocative book has international appeal and will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policymakers with an interest in migration and social and ethnic control.

    1: Introduction; I: General Overview; 2: A Review of the Principal European Countries; 3: Do Conflicts between Cultures Really Exist? A Historical and Methodological Reflection 1; 4: Using Gender to Shape Difference: The Doctrine of Cultural Offence and Cultural Defence; 5: Media Discourse on Immigration: Control Practices and the Language we Live; 6: The Detention Machine; 7: The Metamorphosis of Asylum in Europe: From the Origins of 'Fake Refugees' to their Internment 1; 8: The (re)Criminalization of Roma Communities in a Neoliberal Europe; 9: The U.S. Penal Experiment; II: National Case Studies; 10: Delinquency, Victimization, Criminalization and Penal Treatment of Foreigners in France; 11: Criminalization and Victimization of Immigrants in Germany; 12: The Construction of Migrants as a Risk Category in the Spanish Penal System; 13: The Italian Crime Deal; III: Particular Practices; 14: The Road to Racial Profiling Was Paved by Immigrants; 15: England: At the Forefront in the Punishment of Minors 1

    Biography

    Salvatore Palidda is Professor of Sociology at the University of Genoa, Italy. He is the author of many publications on migrations and social control, and since 1995 has directed a number of European projects related to the themes explored in this book. His most recent book (co-edited with Alessandro Dal Lago) is Conflict, Security and the Reshaping of Society: The Civilization of War (2010).

    'As the criminalization of immigrants, often coupled with processes of racialization and expressions of religious intolerance, has become a major issue in Western Europe, Salvatore Palidda's edited volume offers an important and timely contribution to the understanding of phenomena which put to the test the very heart of our democracies.' Didier Fassin, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, USA 'This book will make mainstream criminologists howl at its unrelenting criticism of the West's heavy-handed reliance upon the criminal law and incarceration to dampen the cry for freedom and opportunity coming from migrants from less privileged nations. With rhetoric and data it paints an ugly picture of gulags, neoracism, and inhumanity.' William F. McDonald, Georgetown University, USA 'This rich volume does not only expand the existing scholarship on criminalization and on migration. It is also an outstanding contribution to the sociology of the state, of inequality, and of neoliberalism in the 21st century.' Critical Sociology '... a must read for those academics, researchers and policy makers with an interest in migrations and socio-ethnic control, and not only in Europe.' Southworld.net 'This book is to be applauded for exploring migration from a novel perspective, drawing together both the global and the local. It is in examining these intersections that the book brings new insights whilst also highlighting some of the deeply concerning issues of power and inequality that exist in the world's richest nations.' Prison Service Journal