The rise and fall of crimmigration arrangements in Spain

• In Event: Penality in the south(-s) (II): Debates on Southern (Border) Criminology (I)

Abstract

This paper examines the main features of the Spanish immigration detention and deportation system, as well as its changes over the last two decades. For some years Spanish migration control policies significantly resembled the state coercion arrangements described by crimmigration scholars. Yet crimmigration practices are clearly on the decline nowadays. Following the typology of deportation laws elaborated by Kanstroom (2007), this contribution aims to shed light on the different forces leading to give preference to either an “extended border control” or a “post-entry social control” model of immigration enforcement.
For these purposes, the paper first presents some basic traits of Spanish immigration enforcement policies, before scrutinizing the rise and fall of crimmigration arrangements in Spain. In so doing, the paper examines why and how immigration enforcement practices change across time, contributing both to characterize bordered penality in southern Europe, bringing to the fore a relatively peripheral European region, and to better grasp the nature and actual significance of crimmigration arrangements.

Authors

• Cristina Fernandez Bessa, University of A Coruna

• Ana Ballesteros-Pena, Complutense University of Madrid

• Jose A. Brandariz, University of A Coruna