Observatory for the Promotion of Democratic Security Policies
The Observatory, established at CRIMePO under a cooperation agreement between the Municipality of Milan and the University of Milan, aims to broaden knowledge of security-related phenomena and to strengthen the capacity of local authorities to address security issues while respecting rights and freedoms and actively involving individuals and communities.
Social demand or political strategy? The final report of the research project “The Determinants of Urban Security Policies” has been published
The report of the research project “The Determinants of Urban Security Policies” is now available. The report investigates the factors underlying the emergence in Italy, since the 1990s, of the “urban security issue” and the related public policies.
Conference "Urban Security: Social Demand or Political Strategy?"
he conference “Urban Security: Social Demand or Political Strategy?” – the final conference of the PRIN PNRR project The Determinants of Urban Security Policies and Their Impact on Democratic Institutions – aims to present and discuss the results of an interdisciplinary research project devoted to the analysis of the determinants of urban security policies.
Groomers, Gays, and Gender Ideology: Why the Anti-LGBTQIA+ Legislative Backlash is a Moral Panic and Why Criminologists Should Care
The article “Groomers, Gays, and Gender Ideology: Why the Anti-LGBTQIA+ Legislative Backlash Is a Moral Panic and Why Criminologists Should Care” analyzes the anti-LGBTQIA+ legislative backlash through the lens of moral panic.
Exceptionality and common features of migration law in the age of mass migration
Michele Pifferi analyzes how migration law has become an exceptional legal field, shaped by fear and the need for social control.
L. Squillace (2024), Vulnerable Youth. Resolução 20 and Operação Verão: two security measures in Rio de Janeiro.
The article aims to examine two urban security measures, the Resolução 20 (Resolution 20) and the Operação Verão (Operation Summer), implemented in Rio de Janeiro, and targeting young people in situations of social vulnerability. The first is aimed at children and adolescents living on the streets, while the second, carried out at the city’s main beaches, focuses on controlling young people from the outskirts and favelas.
L. Squillace, R. Cornelli, I. Cano (2024), Fear and Surveillance on the Beaches of Rio de Janeiro: the Operação Verão
This article presents the findings of a qualitative study on Operação Verão (Operation Summer), a police operation on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro targeting collective thefts attributed to young people from the peripheries: the arrastão. It analyzes the perceptions of beachgoers and law enforcement officers and demonstrates how citizens’ fears have evolved into a perpetual panic, demanding increasingly harsh security measures.
C. Chisari (2023), Transitioning from dynamic security in Italian prisons: Assessing the influence of perceived insecurity on prison management
The article “Transitioning from dynamic security in Italian prisons: Assessing the influence of perceived insecurity on prison management”, by Chiara Chisari, examines the reasons underlying Circular of the Italian Prison Administration No. 3693/6143 of 2022, which significantly curtails the use of open custody and dynamic security in Italian prisons.
R. Cornelli (2019), La paura nel campo penale. Una storia del presente
Reflecting on the intertwining of fear, violence and order as a constitutive trait of modern societies and on the projection of this intertwining in the contemporary world is essential to critically read today's political orientations and choices in the field of criminal law, urban security and counter-terrorism and, at the same time, allows us not to look away from that emptiness of imagination that is linked to the difficulty of thinking differently about the role of politics, which is forced into increasingly narrow and narrow spaces of action.
A. Ceretti, R. Cornelli (2018) Oltre la paura. Affrontare il tema della sicurezza in modo democratico, Milan: Feltrinelli
The book aims to challenge the widespread tendency to rely on pre-packaged solutions when reflecting on crime and insecurity, urban violence, racial hatred, incivility and spatial control, prisons, and mental health. Its goal is to move beyond social fears through a democratic security policy.