Law enforcement and academic studies in Italy and the United States: a comparison

ABSTRACT

The article highlights the principal themes addressed in recent Italian and American historical studies of law enforcement, as well as proposals for removing major social obstacles such as discrimination in the police and the policing of social protest, Islamic terrorism and organized crime or the excessive use of force by law enforcement agencies against the citizenship. An introduction to historical studies on the origins of local law enforcement in the United States is followed by a description of the concept of policing, namely the interaction between police and citizens, a subject addressed by most American criminologists, sociologists and historians. On the other hand, Italian jurists and historians have preferred to focus on the history of the Italian state police (Polizia di Stato) or on the national gendarmerie (Arma dei Carabinieri), and to highlight the primarily the critical times of Fascism and the so-called ‘Years of Lead’. The police function to counter crime, but to do so, they adapt themselves to the kind of crime being prosecuted. A comparative overview of the main issues addressed in the two historiographies illustrates how after the 9/11 attacks law enforcement evolved in both the United States and Italy specifically to fight Islamic terrorism, and how new special units have been formed to counter crimes such as drug trafficking and Mafia rackets. But structural changes in local and state law enforcement work are also connected with changes in the authority of the state, suggesting that historians need to explore more closely the connections between security bodies, citizens and social control.

RIASSUNTO

Il contributo si pone l’obiettivo di evidenziare gli ultimi argomenti affrontati dagli studi accademici italiani e americani di storia, insieme ad alcune probabili soluzioni finalizzate alla rimozione di gravi problemi sociali quali la discriminazione in polizia, la protesta sociale, il terrorismo islamico, la criminalità organizzata o l’utilizzo eccessivo della violenza da parte delle forze dell’ordine verso la cittadinanza. Innanzitutto, l’introduzione rileva gli studi storici inerenti alla nascita delle forze dell’ordine locali negli Stati Uniti. Segue una descrizione del concetto di policing, ovvero dell’interazione tra polizia e cittadini, che è stato affrontato dalla maggior parte dei criminologi, dei sociologi e degli storici americani. D’altra parte, i giuristi e gli storici italiani hanno preferito concentrarsi sulla storia della Polizia di Stato o dell’Arma dei Carabinieri, evidenziando la loro struttura nei periodi chiave del Fascismo e dei cosiddetti “Anni di Piombo”. Se la polizia lotta contro il crimine, è anche vero che, per fare ciò, essa deve adattarsi alla tipologia di crimine che persegue. Attraverso uno sguardo d’insieme delle questioni principali che le due storiografie hanno esaminato, sarà possibile notare l’evoluzione delle forze dell’ordine italiane e statunitensi dopo gli attentati terroristici dell’11 settembre al fine di combattere il terrorismo islamico, o la formazione di reparti speciali per il contrasto del traffico di sostanze stupefacenti. Le modifiche strutturali interne alle polizie locali e nazionali si verificano in parallelo con i cambiamenti istituzionali. Per tale ragione, il collegamento tra corpi di sicurezza, cittadini e controllo sociale dovrebbe essere ulteriormente esplorato in una futura ricerca storiografica.

KEYWORDS:

• historiography
• police
• policing
• ‘Years of Lead’
• Mafia
• African American minorities
• Islamic terrorism

PAROLE CHIAVE:

• Storiografia
• Polizia
• ‘Anni di Piombo’
• Mafia
• Minoranza afro-americana
• Terrorismo islamico

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. An interesting collaborative project between different scholars in the field of law enforcement was introduced in 2013 with the publication, edited by Raffaele Camposano, of the Quaderno della Polizia di Stato [Notebook of the State Police], available at https://www.poliziadistato.it/articolo/pubblicazioni-scaricabili.

2. The first was the Boston Police Department in 1838.

3. In Italy, the Centro di Studi “Le Polizie e il Controllo del Territorio” (https://www.cepoc.it/), born in 2012, keeps studying topics concerning the Italian police between the nineteenth and twentieth century.

4. [The Police Corps shall preserve the public order, abide by the Constitution, and grant citizens to exercise their freedom; enforce the law, rules and measures adopted by public authorities; provide for public security by preventing and combating crime; and offer assistance in case of calamities. To these ends, the Corps carries out its functions at the service of the democratic authorities and of the citizens, asking for their cooperation]. See Comitato ristretto interpartitico, Testo del progetto di riforma della polizia (quoted in Bernardi 1979, 175).

Additional information

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Francesco Landolfi

Francesco Landolfi has a PhD in Historical Studies at the University of Florence. His research interests focuses on the history of crime in Italy and the United States and connections with local authorities, including law enforcement. He is currently working on a study of Italian, Irish and Jewish ethnic gangs in New York City during the Prohibition Era.