Miss Giulia Ferranti

Project working title: Punishment, Justice, and Penal Harm: A Zemiological Investigation into the Overrepresentation of People with Migratory Backgrounds within the Italian Criminal Justice System

Despite representing only 13% of the whole Italian population, the average percentage of migrants incarcerated after sentencing for a criminal offence in Italy makes up 32,5% of the prison population (Antigone, 2020). Migrants are therefore greatly over-represented, and this provides a clear reason for concern in terms of uncovering and addressing pathways to, and impacts of, processes of criminalisation of migrant populations.

Drawing from a zemiological lens, and using a multiple case study research design of two prisons in Italy, in the form of semi-structured interviews with migrants detained in prisons, and focus groups with prison staff and public defenders, this research aims to:

1. explore and analyse the relationship between racialised and gendered political discourse of immigration, corresponding legislation and policy, and criminal justice procedures for migrants;
2. unearth multifarious narratives of penal harm from the perspective of migrants detained in two prisons in Italy;
3. track and classify the structural patterns of penal harm from the phase of arrest to imprisonment;
4. identify the features contributing to the structured risk of the criminal justice process in Italy for penal harm;
5. determine how to detect and respond to penal harm inflicted upon migrants detained in prisons.

In general terms, my research will contribute to academic theory and knowledge, as well as fundamental and topical criminal justice policy concerns.

Supervisors: Dr. Victoria Canning and Dr. Natasha Carver

Sponsor: South West Doctoral Training Partnership Studentship Award (ESRC) 2021-2024