The social dangerousness of the defendant is ‘at one with her own condition of being nomadic’: Roma and Sinti in Italian Courts of Law1 , 2

Abstract

Drawing on an ethnographic study of cases of alleged kidnapping of non-Romani children by Roma and Sinti adults in Italy, this article demonstrates how negative stereotyping that constructs the Roma as dangerous nomadic people, foreigners from whom society must be protected, can affect their treatment by prosecutors, lawyers and judges in the Italian judicial system. The initial review of ANSA (Italian National News Agency) items concerning cases of alleged kidnapping over a period of twenty years (1996–2007) provides a corpus of cases, which is further investigated through an analysis of relevant judicial files alongside in-depth interviews with lawyers and public prosecutors, and participant observation in two trials. The article shows how in several instances essentialist assumptions on the ethnic and cultural background of the Roma and Sinti and their lifestyle intervene in the trial, distorting the implementation of judicial instruments. In this process, the defendant loses his/her individuality and is constructed as part of a homogeneous and socially dangerous ethnic grouping, for which stricter social control and tougher legal measures are fully justified.