Roma women serving community sentences in Italy: an analysis through the lens of Critical Criminology and Critical Romani Studies

ABSTRACT

This article asserts that it can be analytically expedient to employ and combine aspects of Critical Criminology and Critical Romani Studies in research that analyses the relationship between Roma and the criminal justice system. The resulting approach focuses on criminalization and racialization processes and how they are intertwined, as well as on social construction of representations and on structural discrimination, which is analysed from an intersectional perspective. When applied to research into mothers serving community sentences in Italy, this analytical framework enabled us to highlight forms of discrimination that affect Roma women given non-custodial sentences and show how their relationship with the criminal justice system is influenced by the prevailing cultural constructs regarding gender and motherhood, as well as by racialization processes and class backgrounds.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical Romani Studies
• Critical Criminology
• Roma women
• intersectionality
• criminal justice system
• community sentences

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank: Veronica Marchio for her contribution to data collection and analysis; all the people who collaborated with us on the research, by participating in interviews or providing us with data; the anonymous reviewers, for their useful comments and suggestions on how to improve the quality and clarity of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Statement of ethics

The research project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the FISPPA Department (Comitato Etico per la Ricerca di Dipartimento – CERD), University of Padua (approval number: 2024-UNPDD04-0002525).

Notes

1 They can be divided into primary criminalization processes (making laws) and secondary criminalization processes (the application of laws by various parties, such as law enforcement agencies, judges and magistrates). Neither of these processes is neutral: the decisions about which behaviour and which individuals to punish are based on selective judgement connected with the power relationships in society (Becker 1963).

2 The reference here is to the Gypsy Lore Society, founded at the end of the 19th century: together with its journal going by the same name (renamed “Romani Studies” in 2000), it promoted a series of studies on the Roma, taking a culturalist and essentialist approach.

3 We prefer not to give specific details of the UEPE and SerD in question in order to protect the anonymity of the operators who were interviewed. The UEPE social workers work with both Roma and non-Roma men and women. Those who work for the SerD rarely have Roma users, so the interviews with them were not used for this article.

4 As illustrated by Corradi (2018), many Roma women in Europe find themselves at the intersection of racism, sexism and poverty, including the Roma women included in our research. However, by noting this we are not denying the existence of other situations or portraying all Roma women as victims (regarding this matter and the agency of Roma women in Italy, see Mantovan and Maestri 2021).

5 Although the 15 women in our sample belong to various subgroups (including Sinti), we used the generic term “Roma” for simplicity’s sake. Some were born in other countries, but the majority were born in Italy (see Tab. 4 in the following section).

6 The names of the women have been changed to protect their anonymity.

7 For privacy reasons, the social workers at the UEPE that we analysed were identified with numbers. In the extracts from interviews and rulings that we have provided, we have used italics to highlight some of the words and expressions utilized, as part of the focus on language described in the methodology section.

8 Deferred execution of sentences was established to protect health or motherhood. Regarding the latter, deferment is compulsory for pregnant women and mothers with children less than one year old, while optional deferment can be requested by mothers with children less than three years old. The “Simeone-Saraceni” law (no. 165 of 27 May 1998) reformed art. 47 ter, paragraph 1 of the Italian Prison System Legislation, with the creation of paragraphs 1 bis and 1 ter. The exact wording in art. 47 ter, paragraph 1 ter, is as follows: “when compulsory or optional deferment of execution of a sentence can be ordered pursuant to articles 146 and 147 of the penal code, even if the sentence exceeds the limit established in paragraph 1, the supervisory court can decide to order house arrest, setting a time limit on it which can be extended. Execution of the sentence continues during the period of house arrest.” This created a new form of house arrest known as “subrogation” (of deferment of execution of a sentence) or “derogation” (of the usual sentence and category limits provided for by art. 47 ter, paragraph 1 of the Italian Prison System Legislation). Supervisory courts have broad discretionary powers in this respect. In our sample of 41 files, there were no cases in which non-Roma women asked for deferred execution. However, one of the social workers interviewed told us that requests for deferred execution are usually granted when they are made by non-Roma women.

Additional information

Funding

The data informing this article were collected as part of the project “Punished Mothers. Women with children serving sentences”, which was led by Professor Francesca Vianello at the University of Padua. It took place between 2020 and 2023 and it was funded by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo (2018 Call for Excellent Scientific Research Proposals).