Recent Anti-Mafi a Strategies: The Italian Experience

Abstract

We often tend to think of criminal policies as essentially repressive. At first sight this assumption seems to apply straightforwardly in the case of policies against organized crime, especially those targeted at mafia type organizations. However, experience shows that these criminal organizations can be fought successfully also by means of measures which are not in themselves repressive, albeit they aim to favour repression in the last resort. Rather than “alternative,” I prefer to call such indirect strategies to fight organized crime “complementary” to repressive measures, in the sense that the latter are always required, but can be more effective if they are complemented by indirect means. More than two decades ago, the Italian state introduced measures to fight mafia type organizations more effectively than was previously possible. The turning point was the Rognoni-La Torre act of 1982. From that moment onwards, the range of repressive measures expanded to a level which does not compare with any other European country. I am referring to specific criminal offences (the crime of mafia type criminal association); broad investigative powers; penetrating preventive measures (with regard to freedom of movement of suspected mafia men as well as to patrimonial assets and economic activity); regulations concerning financial transactions and money laundering; sanctions; special procedural rules on mafia trials, and so on. Repressive measures are normally aimed at discouraging people from doing something by punishing them afterwards. Consequently, they will be effective if illegal actions are discovered, if the criminals are seized, if the trials are quick, if the benefits stemming from crime are reduced or eliminated altogether, if inmates cannot interact with one another and with the organization, and so on. In addition to direct repressive measures, we can observe in the Italian case a wide variety of other policies addressing civil society and public administration, and only indirectly the mafia. I will illustrate such indirect ways to tackle the mafia problem in the next sections. Before doing so, I will first briefly elaborate on the meaning of indirect policies.