Migration and Criminalization Processes: A Comparative Research Between America and Europe

• In Event: Legal Order and Social Control: Comparative Analyses

Abstract

The present study focuses on the relationships between migration processes and migrants’ criminalization in Europe and the United States. While the so-called “mass incarceration” in the US seems to be connected to a limited presence of foreign-born in American jails and prisons, the opposite seems to happen in Europe. This result may be explained by several factors (different criminal dynamics in America and Europe, a different development of the specific conditions of lack of documentation, the massive use of deportation in the US, an overall radically different management of immigration in Europe and in the US).The present study unfolds both cross-sectionally, and historically, by analyzing the principal time series, and assessing elements of social, economic and demographic nature in comparison with aspects of the law in the countries considered.

Authors

• Ester Massa, University of Bologna

• Dario Melossi, University of Bologna