The control of the «New Dangerours Classes»

Abstract

This paper aims at elucidating the role played by the Italian penal system in the government of that specific segment of social marginality presented by illegal immigrants. Drawing on an ethnographic research on the procedimento per direttissima (summary penal procedure), it tries to show that some features of the Italian penal system, typically associated with the police activity, do increase the selectivity of the system to the detriment of those who are socially constructed as dangerous, converting it into an administrative agency devoted to the management of social boundaries. What emerges from the empirical research is indeed the core position assumed by the Italian penal system in the framework of an increasingly restrictive migratory policy: called to govern a population strictly confined at the margin, its main task becomes to reduce the social costs caused by the subordinate inclusion that Italy grants to migrants.