The logic of decorum and security normalizes institutional violence

 

Who is protected by the criminal system?And by whom?Who calls the police?Who's afraid of it?Who is most likely to go to prison?Who less?Who is designated as a criminal, who as a victim?

The decline in crimes has been a real observation for several years, a statistical truth that is difficult to deny.Serious crimes reported in Italy in the first six months of 2021 overall decreased compared to the same period in 2019, in the pre-pandemic era.They had been 1,149,914 three years ago and dropped to 949,120 in 2021, with a decrease of 17.4%:confirming a trend that is observed for at least ten years in our country.

On 16 May 2019, in this regard, the Ministry of the Interior convened a press conference for the communication of the first quarterly data relating to security and crime relating to the same period in 2018.The title of the press release published on the website of Ministry of the Interior it read “Crimes -9.2%, -31.87% the presence of foreigners.”

The language used ensures that those who use the news derive an immediate and deceptive equation:the drop in crimes is due to the decrease in migrants in the area, nothing more than a result of the Immigration and Security Decree, awaiting the "second piece", "the Security Decree Bis".Legislation on immigration has for years been interconnected with that on public safety.The relationship with immigration is that of a continuous emergency, trapped in the dialectic between reception and criminalisation.

We talk about migratory phenomena from a security perspective where integration is presented as the only way for the native population to save itself from the dangers deriving from immigration mass and fromemergency of landings.As Zygmunt Bauman points out in Strangers at the gates:

A concept has recently made its appearance in public discourse that until recently was still unknown, and has not yet been incorporated into dictionaries:safety, or “securitization”.As soon as it was coined, this term immediately became part of the lexicon of politicians and communicators.What this neologism aims to capture and express is the increasingly frequent reclassification under the heading "insecurity" of certain phenomena, once placed in other categories;this redefinition is followed, almost automatically, by the transfer of those same phenomena to the sphere, responsibility and supervision of the security bodies.This semantic ambiguity is, obviously, not the cause of that automatism, but it certainly facilitates its practical implementation.

This misleading narrative provides a key to the distorted interpretation of migratory phenomena, hindering the correct identification of possible solutions to govern them.What emerges from this is the idea that immigration in itself constitutes a danger to security and civil life.This juxtaposition, so frequent in legislative policies and communication, is co-responsible for false perception of danger by the population and leads to the legitimization of repressive policies in the treatment of foreigners, with the effect of governing the phenomenon not for what it is, but instrumentally, for the purposes of political consensus.

The regulatory phases of recent years, in fact, move along a double track:the first constituted by immigration, the second by security, intersected on the basis of a security paradigm, linked to populist policies.This narrative has created a criminogenic effect, fueling representations of the social dangerousness of certain categories of the population.

The much discussed Security Decrees are merely the continuation of legislation that began many years earlier, already in 2008 with the Minister of the Interior Maroni.There law 24 July 2008, n°125 attributed greater powers to mayors in matters of urban security and public safety.This for situations such as drug dealing, exploitation of prostitution, begging and violence linked to alcohol abuse;damage to public and private property;degradation and illegal occupation of properties;illegal commercial activity and the illicit occupation of public land;behaviors that "offend public decency" and "seriously disturb the use of public spaces".

Far from implying that migrants in Italy are strangers to these practices, it is important to note, however, that this decree, among other things, introduced for the first time the aggravating circumstance of illegal immigration (then repealed in 2010 for unconstitutionality).Due to the effect of this aggravating circumstance, the crimes committed by foreigners illegally present in Italy were considered more serious in our system.As such, they were to be punished with a penalty increased by up to a third compared to the same crimes committed by Italian citizens and foreigners legally present in Italy.

Since then, the need to preserve the so-called "urban decorum" and to "counter phenomena of widespread illegality linked to illegal immigration and organized crime" have gone hand in hand through various "security packages".Even before the application of the 2008 decree, administrative ordinances were used as a means to regulate public order in many municipalities.

These had the objective of regulating the conduct of types of people considered dangerous a priori, even though these conducts did not constitute a crime in themselves:from the ban on the practice of the wandering profession of window cleaner, by the mayor of Florence in 2007, we moved on to disciplinary measures for "street prostitution activities", against itinerant immigrant workers and finally the homeless.And over the years these decrees have taken on a real form of violence towards those who already lived in marginalization and poverty.

The violence of decorum is reflected in the face on the ground of Pape Demba Wagner, the street vendor hunted by the police in the center of Florence for having disturbed the order of the Florentine citizens with his goods.He is in the arm of the policeman who, in order to fight degradation, risks suffocating a man, who struggles to breathe as he shouts for help.Just four years ago Idy Diene, another Senegalese street vendor, was killed by 6 gunshots at the hands of Roberto Pirroni in the streets of Florence.And after the murder, Mayor Nardella's first reaction and concern were a couple of planters damaged by the legitimate anger of the Senegalese community during the demonstrations, a community that had already had to deal, seven years earlier, again in Florence, with a far-right attack by Gianluca Casseri which killed two Senegalese, Samb Modou and Diop Mor, and a third was paralyzed for life.

Read also >> If for our society the foreigner is a question of security

Perhaps a man's life is worth less than the decorous appearance of a city.Perhaps we are so used to the logic of command that, even when the police or racists exaggerate a little, we still think we have the right to dictate the right methods with which the oppressed can express their discontent, without "degenerating" and "passing on the wrong side."

Without going into the possibility or otherwise that the arrest of Pape Demba Wagne was also dictated by racist motivations, it is interesting to note that even in cities that carry with them the reputation of being progressive we see fines and expulsions targeting demographic categories simply for attempting to refuse the condition of poverty that, very often, is imposed on him.Too many times the police have shown that they are more inclined to protect the interests of those who push the population to that "degradation" than the population itself.

Looking at the problem from another perspective, in recent years there has been growing attention to the difficulties encountered by women victims of sexual violence or domestic violence within our system, with funds to combat gender violence which continue to be lacking, or distributed poorly and poorly.

But the promptness with which, at every attack, the iron fist of the police and politicians is invoked is illuminating:the feminist question becomes a pretext to legitimize security discourses, which aim more at a performativity of action, than at effective protection and prevention.

This is the case, for example, of the mayor of Milan, who after the events of the New Year's Eve violence to the detriment of various girls in the city square, he stated:“I will bring a resolution to the council in the next few days to hire 500 policemen, I promised it during the election campaign.And I hope that the state police will do the same.We need more people in the area."

Read also >> New Year's Eve violence in Milan and the racialisation of sexism

And while in other parts of the world questions are being asked about the need for alternative forms of citizen protection, with the movements of defunding the police (or even abolition) which have been making themselves felt for many years in the United States, in France, in England, in the face of an increasingly authoritarian Europe, in Italy we are still stuck in the adulation of our "angels in uniform".All without perhaps wondering which means to invest in to protect the police officers themselvesi (working conditions, stress, psychology, basic system reform, and so on) even before having to deal with this violence.

The response of greater transparency, for example with identification codes for agents, has always remained unanswered, while the security dimension is gradually equipped with greater repressive tools, such as tasers, the danger of which has already been demonstrated.The analysis of a systemic phenomenon, of which the most brutal cases are the most visible symptoms, is usually contrasted with that of the - few, it is said - rotten apples.

Read also >> Everything that's wrong with the taser adopted by the police

They were bad apples who on 15 October 2009 beat up a boy, Stefano Cucchi, while he was in precautionary custody, causing his death a few days later.Other bad apples decided to falsely state and defame the victim for sidetrack the investigation and other apples higher up the tree have decided to cover up the crimes of the others.The same violence that killed Federico Aldrovandi in 2005, Riccardo Rasman in 2006, Giuseppe Uva and the many other state deaths on which misdirections, silence and mystifications have danced over the years.Just by reviewing these few cases we have decimated an entire plantation with withered fruits, which often rot, but rarely fall.

The call for reform will not come from above.We must ask ourselves the questions at the beginning of this article.Because too often, too hastily, we cry “wolf!” even in those situations in which we know that in front of us, at worst, there is a Chihuahua - annoying yes, but certainly manageable with different methods.

Too often we talk so easily about guaranteeism, about how justice should be rehabilitative rather than merely punitive, but without hesitation we call for prison even for less heinous crimes, or we are scandalized when a former prisoner, who paid for his crimes, he is reintegrated and has a life within society.

What we sometimes struggle to understand or even just admit, is that much of what we call "crime" is not an immutable reality in itself, but the outcome of a historical journey, of political struggles (some to criminalize, others for decriminalize or legalize) and balances of power.If this were not the case, how can we explain that some behaviors are criminalized in some countries and not in others?Because in some countries more serious crimes are punishable by death, while in a country like Norway the maximum sentence to which a mass murderer can be sentenced is 21 years?We must then consider the evolution of a company over time:facts criminalized yesterday may not be considered crimes in the present, and vice versa.

We should ask ourselves what distinguishes on the one hand the need to recognize the facts, the injustice, the desire for the damage received to be recognized as such, and on the other the desire to punish, to create hells on earth where "evil" can be relegated.That which, by definition, must be low down, away from those who are morally superior.

Preview image:still image from the video that captured Pape Dembra Wagne being arrested in Florence, via Il Post