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The London School of Economics and Political Science The Penality of Politics, Penality in Contemporary Italy 1970-2000 Zelia Anna Gallo A thesis submitted to the Department of Law of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, April 2013 1 Declaration I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 100,728 words. 2 Abstract The thesis is a socio-legal account of Italian penality between 1970 and 2000. It analyses the Italian experience as a critical case study with which to test David Garland, Alessandro De Giorgi and Nicola Lacey’s theories of punishment in contemporary Western polities. It argues that Italian penality is not sufficiently explained by reference to Garland or De Giorgi’s meta- theories of ‘late modern’ and ‘post-Fordist’ punishment. Lacey’s institutional analysis provides a better framework, if modified to allow for the centrality of political dynamics in Italy. The thesis argues that Italian penality is a ‘volatile penal equilibrium’, whose ‘differential punitiveness’ is marked by oscillations between repression and leniency. The thesis provides an institutional analysis of Italian punishment, investigating in turn the Italian political economy, political culture and state-citizen relations, judicial contributions to penal trends, and the punishment of non-EU migrants. The thesis argues that Italian penality can be systematised by reference to political dynamics, in particular political conflict and political dualisms. Political conflict can broadly be defined as conflict between political interests, ranging from parties through to broader political groups such as families; dualisms are tensions produced by opposing institutional dynamics. The thesis analyses these conflicts and dualisms in terms of penal pressures, either in favour of penal exclusion or moderation. Italy’s institutional structure incorporates political conflict, and fosters structural tensions. The result is that Italy’s volatile political equilibrium is conveyed through its institutions to the penal realm, producing a volatile penal equilibrium. Ultimately, the Italian case study demonstrates that contemporary theories of penality should explicitly incorporate political dynamics and their institutional anchorage. Italian penality can be analysed in terms of the nature of the state and its institutions and inclusion and exclusion from political belonging. Contemporary theories would profit from incorporating this analysis. 3 Acknowledgments This thesis would have been an entirely different, and far less enjoyable, experience had it not been for my supervisors Nicola Lacey and Peter Ramsay. My thanks go to them for their support, insight and friendship over the years: they have been inexhaustible sources of inspiration. Thanks also to Tim Newburn, for reading and commenting on an early version of Chapter 2, and steering me towards an ever responsible use of criminal justice statistics. The Centro Documentazione Caritas Ambrosiana, with its library and resources, were essential for my research in Chapter 6. Many many thanks go to Linda Mulcahy, for her invaluable support throughout the last years of the PhD, and to Mike Redmayne for being a great teaching mentor. Thanks, of course, go to the LSE, the LSE Law Department, and the Olive Stone Memorial Fund, whose financial support made the writing of the whole thesis possible. I want to thank my parents, Tiziana Della Puppa and Cirino Gallo, for their guidance, love and patience, their immense foresight, and the great personal sacrifice they were willing to make for me. Finally, I would like to thank Sean Deel, my wonderful partner, who even read this thesis abstract to bibliography. All responsibility for the contents of this thesis, and any errors it may contain, is solely my own. 4 Table of Contents List of Figures and Tables ....................................................................................................... 8 Chapter 1 - Introduction ......................................................................................................... 9 I. Research Questions ........................................................................................................ 12 II. Why investigate punishment? ...................................................................................... 12 III. Scopes and limits of this thesis. .................................................................................. 15 IV. Boundaries: theorists, time and space ....................................................................... 18 i. Why the theories? ......................................................................................................... 18 ii. Why Italy? ................................................................................................................... 20 iii. Why the timeframe? ................................................................................................... 23 V. The literature ................................................................................................................. 26 i. Cultures of Control ....................................................................................................... 26 ii. Political Economies of Punishment ............................................................................. 35 iii. The Prisoners’ Dilemma and comparative penology .................................................. 39 VI. A note on methodology ................................................................................................ 48 VII. The contents of this thesis .......................................................................................... 51 Chapter 2 - Italy’s Differential Punitiveness ....................................................................... 54 I. Introduction – Hypothesising Differential Punitiveness ............................................. 54 II. Italian penal trends: time trends and comparison ..................................................... 57 III. Interpreting the figures ............................................................................................... 61 i. Amnesties and Pardons ................................................................................................. 61 ii. Differential punitiveness and penal dualisms: repression and leniency ...................... 65 iii. The 1990s – growing prison rates ............................................................................... 71 iv. Nationality and immigration ....................................................................................... 73 IV. Conclusions: differential punitiveness ....................................................................... 78 Chapter 3 - Politics and Penality: the Political Economy ................................................... 81 I. Introduction .................................................................................................................... 81 i. Italy and political conflict: interest fragmentation and institutional permeability ........ 83 II. Politics, Penality and the Political Economy .............................................................. 88 i. Political conflict and the political economy .................................................................. 88 ii. Italian parties – ‘partitocrazia’ and conflict as constraint ............................................ 92 iii. The Italian political economy: the welfare system ..................................................... 98 iv. The Italian political economy: fragmentation and dualisms - territorial divisions, public and private Italies. ............................................................................................... 105 v. Reintegration or exclusion? ....................................................................................... 112 vi. Italy and post-Fordist economies .............................................................................. 115 vii. The penal incentives of a politicised political economy: in-groups, identification, and informal social control ................................................................................................... 120 III. Politics and the political economy: theoretical conclusions ................................... 131 Chapter 4 – Politics and Penality: State and Citizen, Politics and Culture .................... 135 I. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 135 II. State and citizens, politics and culture. .................................................................... 135 i. Italy – divided allegiances and penal authority ........................................................... 135 5 ii. The penal law – symbolism and deployment, reception and avoidance. ................... 142 iii. Dualisms