Investigating youth incarceration for accused human smuggling: insights from Southern Spain

• In Event: Criminology of Mobility. Panel 7. Migrants and asylum seekers as a threat and in the criminal justice system

Abstract

In a recent report (2022) the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) points out that many people are detained along the Canary route, accused of smuggling migrants. The report questions whether the weight of the law would be falling on people who have little to do with criminal networks that do business with human smuggling vessels. Non-governmental organisations have also detected and denounced a similar situation on the Italian coast (ARCI Porco Rosso and Alarm Phone, 2021). During fieldwork carried out in southern Spain in the framework of the JEPRAN project (Jóvenes Extranjeros Exutelados en las Prisiones Andaluzas, 2021-2023) and seeking to identify different profiles of young people in prison, a surprising number of young people accused of human smuggling were identified in Almeria. This finding has raised concerns about this phenomenon: the Canary Islands and Andalusia in Spain and the Italian southern border seem to share a punitive response to the arrival of migrants in boats on their territory. This paper will present the results of interviews with young people in prison accused of human smuggling and reflect on the European response to this crime.
The testimonies of these young people indicate that they are a particularly defenceless group, without information about their rights and that some of them are minors who are not identified as such by the police or by any other authority, along their path from sea to jail.

Author

• Jacqueline Carvalho da Silva, University of Málaga