The crimmigration literature has underlined the increasing merging of criminal law and immigration law practices and procedures. Border criminology literature, in turn, has recently scrutinized the ...penal scenario in which this alleged fusion is taking place. Both pieces of scholarship, though, largely overlook the agonistic coexistence of border control interests and crime prevention aims, as well as the preference given to immigration enforcement arrangements over criminal law procedures in many jurisdictions. By drawing on a number of cases mainly—albeit not exclusively—taken from Spanish crimmigration policies, this article examines what may be called the ‘instrumentalism’ strategies that are notably transforming crime control practices targeting noncitizens, and the criminal justice system in its entirety.
NL. De dienst Openbare Veiligheid (O.V.) controleerde vreemdelingen en zette ongewensten het land uit. Hiervoor rekende het op verschillende actoren, waaronder de rechterlijke macht. Dit artikel ...bespreekt de verhoudingen tussen beide instellingen op twee niveaus. Ten eerste, hoe hingen ze onderling van elkaar af op vlak van informatieverstrekking? Het toont aan dat correctionele rechtbanken, via informatiebulletins over vervolgde of veroordeelde vreemdelingen, een essentiële schakel vormden voor de O.V. om repressief op te treden. Omgekeerd rekenden rechtbanken niet op de O.V. om antecedenten te controleren of veroordeelden bij verstek te localiseren. Ten tweede bespreekt het artikel hoe de rechterlijke macht de bevoegdheid van de O.V. over vreemdelingen beïnvloedde. Het machtsmonopolie van de O.V. over uitwijzingen werd door lagere rechtbanken verschillende keren betwist. Deze vonnissen werden echter telkens aangevochten en uiteindelijk herroepen door het Hof van Cassatie. De analyse van de verhoudingen bewijst dat het concept « crimmigration » diepgeworteld zit in het bureaucratisch apparaat van moderne natiestaten.FR. Au cours du 19e siècle, la Sûreté Publique (S.P.) contrôlait les étrangers et expulsait les « indésirables ». Pour ce faire, elle s’appuyait sur différents acteurs, dont le système judiciaire. Cet article analyse deux aspects de la relation entre ces deux institutions. Premièrement, leur interdépendance quant à l’échange d’informations pour leur bon fonctionnement respectif. D’une part, grâce au bulletin de poursuite ou de condamnation à charge de l’étranger, les tribunaux correctionnels représentaient une source d’information clef pour la S.P., lui permettant d’agir de façon répressive. D’autre part, les tribunaux ne comptaient pas sur la S.P. pour s’informer sur les antécédents des étrangers ou de localiser des condamnés par défaut. Deuxièmement, l’article analyse à quel point le système judiciaire a influencé l’autorité de la S.P., en particulier son monopole sur les expulsions. Divers tribunaux ont contesté ce monopole, mais leurs verdicts ont été contestés à chaque fois et finalement révoqués par la Cour de cassation. L’étude de cette relation démontre que le concept de « crimmigration » est fermement enraciné dans l’apparat bureaucratique de l’État-nation moderne.
This article examines the socio-political implications of using criminal law to address migration issues in Italy. It delves into the polarised political debate characterised by crimmigration, on the ...one hand, and calls to criminalise border violence to protect migrants, on the other hand. It argues that both uses of penality reflect and foster penal antagonism, whereby both sides of the debate seek to impose their views using punishment. Penal antagonism leads to more migrants being incarcerated and forecloses possibilities for more political changes to the prevailing anti-immigration paradigm. Drawing on Chantal Mouffe's work, the article proposes agonistic politics as an alternative approach: a political confrontation to assert one's vision about migration, but where the opponent is an adversary to engage politically rather than an enemy to be delegitimised through penality. Moving from penal antagonism to political agonism could help decouple migration from penality and remove a central source of harm for migrants.
Abstract
Much scholarship underscores the exclusionary nature of crimmigration (the policy of criminalising infringements of immigration rules and imposing adverse immigration consequences as ...sanctions for criminal conduct), viewing it as a system of social marginalisation designed to prevent integration. This article, conversely, demonstrates crimmigration’s potential to contribute to the partial and symbolic acceptance of migrants. The article argues that crimmigration is characterised by a ‘paradox of exclusion’—a contradictory attempt to exclude undesirable migrants via the field of criminal law, which is designed primarily for citizens. Consequently, crimmigration regimes extend to migrants certain rights associated with membership and provide irregular migrants with various opportunities to gain admittance into the community. Two main processes contribute to this dynamic: the extension of principles typical of ‘citizen criminal law’ to migrants and the equation of law abidance with ‘good citizenship’, which informally confirms the right of certain migrants to remain in the country or their suitability for membership. The article discusses crimmigration’s consequent contribution to the process of civic stratification.
Last month, the Italian Court of Cassation upheld the (suspended) sentence of one year’s imprisonment of the shipmaster of the Italian ship Asso28. He was convicted of two offences of abandonment for ...returning and handing around 100 migrants over to the personnel of a Libyan patrol boat, including some unaccompanied minors and pregnant women, whom he had previously rescued in international waters within the Libyan SAR zone. The case constitutes the first time an individual was held criminally responsible for failing to fulfil the duty of non-refoulement. Until recently, the refoulement duty has only served to exclude the liability of shipmasters who had complied with it whenever they were accused of facilitating irregular immigration. This case indicates the emergence of a new function of the principle, namely that of grounding the criminal liability of those who violate it.
Recent scholarship has highlighted that, for many foreign nationals, Western European prisons function as 'places of crimmigration' where non-citizens are over-represented, often excluded from ...rehabilitation efforts, sometimes held in segregated prisons, and where it is common for incarceration to lead to deportation. However, this literature has mainly focused on north-western European countries and has neglected countries on the EU's southern border, where different dynamics may be at work. This research aims to provide a broader understanding of how border control shapes imprisonment in Western European prisons by including Spain, a Southern European country, in the picture. To this end, this article examines prison regulations on foreign inmates and original statistics on their release and expulsion from prison. In doing so, this paper demonstrates that the aims of border control have permeated Spanish prisons, making imprisonment into an exclusionary punishment for certain non-citizens and introducing a new role for prison staff. The findings of this study also indicate that expulsions are used selectively on a small proportion of incarcerated noncitizens. This result is consistent with previous research suggesting a discrepancy between crimmigration discourse and practice, while also revealing the existence of hierarchies of belonging.
