Foreign nationals, enemy penology and the criminal justice system
From Race & Class
European governments have introduced a series of measures aimed at clamping down on foreign nationals within criminal justice systems, this can be viewed as a cultivation of a separate criminal justice system for foreign nationals. This includes policies of automatic deportation on completion of prison sentences of a certain length, harsher sentencing, prison segregation, and restrictions on access to citizenship and rights to permanent settlement.
This article argues that in contrast to sensationalist headlines about foreign criminals, like terrorist threats are misleading, the reality is that those arrested are more likely to be poor migrants, asylum seekers or refugees charged for minor administrative offenses. Could it be that behind governmental resolve to deport more foreign nationals who commit crimes lies another agenda and purpose?
Abstract
In recent years, European governments have introduced a series of measures aimed at clamping down on foreign nationals within criminal justice systems. Such measures have included policies of automatic deportation on completion of prison sentences of a certain length, harsher sentencing, prison segregation, and restrictions on access to citizenship and rights to permanent settlement. This article argues that such measures constitute a separate criminal justice system for foreign nationals, the creation of which has been driven by ‘penal populism and racist campaigns by extreme-Right political parties, against Muslims, asylum seekers and Roma in particular. Many of those designated as foreign criminals are guilty only of new offences specifically created to criminalise undocumented migration; many others are young refugees who have never been helped to deal with the trauma they experienced in their countries of origin. Historically, the European Court of Human Rights has set a high threshold for the deportation of a foreign national following a conviction, particularly with regard to young people. But this has been bypassed by European governments, even in cases of‘virtual nationals , those born and brought up in a European country but, owing to jus sanguinis citizenship laws in some EU countries, holding a non-EU passport. Moreover, there are attempts to curtail the freedom of movement rights of EU citizens, such as Romanian Roma, on the grounds that they are a serious threat to public order.
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Article details:
Title: Foreign nationals, enemy penology and the criminal justice system
Authors: Liz Fekete and Frances Webber
From: Race & Class April 2010 vol. 51
DOI: 10.1177/0306396810362868
Tags: citizenship, deportation, double punishment, prisons, xeno-racism, youth crime
