Criminal Law in Liberal and Fascist Italy


Book Description

The author explains the sustained and wide-ranging interest in penal-law reform that defined this era in Italian legal history.




Fascism and Criminal Law


Book Description

Fascism was one of the twentieth century's principal political forces, and one of the most violent and problematic. Brutal, repressive and in some cases totalitarian, the fascist and authoritarian regimes of the early twentieth century, in Europe and beyond, sought to create revolutionary new orders that crushed their opponents. A central component of such regimes' exertion of control was criminal law, a focal point and key instrument of State punitive and repressive power. This collection brings together a range of original essays by international experts in the field to explore questions of criminal law under Italian Fascism and other similar regimes, including Franco's Spain, Vargas's Brazil and interwar Romania and Japan. Addressing issues of substantive criminal law, criminology and ideology, the form and function of criminal justice institutions, and the role and perception of criminal law in processes of transition, the collection casts new light on fascism's criminal legal history and related questions of theoretical interpretation and historiography. At the heart of the collection is the problematic issue of continuity and similarity among fascist systems and preceding, contemporaneous and subsequent legal orders, an issue that goes to the heart of fascist regimes' historical identity and the complex relationship between them and the legal orders constructed in their aftermath. The collection thus makes an innovative contribution both to the comparative understanding of fascism, and to critical engagement with the foundations and modalities of criminal law across systems.




Fascism: A Very Short Introduction


Book Description

What is fascism? Is it revolutionary? Or is it reactionary? Can it be both? Fascism is notoriously hard to define. How do we make sense of an ideology that appeals to streetfighters and intellectuals alike? That is overtly macho in style, yet attracts many women? That calls for a return to tradition while maintaining a fascination with technology? And that preaches violence in the name of an ordered society? In the new edition of this Very Short Introduction, Kevin Passmore brilliantly unravels the paradoxes of one of the most important phenomena in the modern world—tracing its origins in the intellectual, political, and social crises of the late nineteenth century, the rise of fascism following World War I, including fascist regimes in Italy and Germany, and the fortunes of 'failed' fascist movements in Eastern Europe, Spain, and the Americas. He also considers fascism in culture, the new interest in transnational research, and the progress of the far right since 2002. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.




Fascism and Criminal Law


Book Description

Fascism was one of the twentieth century's principal political forces, and one of the most violent and problematic. Brutal, repressive and in some cases totalitarian, the fascist and authoritarian regimes of the early twentieth century, in Europe and beyond, sought to create revolutionary new orders that crushed their opponents. A central component of such regimes' exertion of control was criminal law, a focal point and key instrument of State punitive and repressive power. This collection brings together a range of original essays by international experts in the field to explore questions of criminal law under Italian Fascism and other similar regimes, including Franco's Spain, Vargas's Brazil and interwar Romania and Japan. Addressing issues of substantive criminal law, criminology and ideology, the form and function of criminal justice institutions, and the role and perception of criminal law in processes of transition, the collection casts new light on fascism's criminal legal history and related questions of theoretical interpretation and historiography. At the heart of the collection is the problematic issue of continuity and similarity among fascist systems and preceding, contemporaneous and subsequent legal orders, an issue that goes to the heart of fascist regimes' historical identity and the complex relationship between them and the legal orders constructed in their aftermath. The collection thus makes an innovative contribution both to the comparative understanding of fascism, and to critical engagement with the foundations and modalities of criminal law across systems.




The Italian Police and the Rise of Fascism


Book Description

Based on original research using official documents, this illuminating account of the role of the police in the rise to power of Mussolini reveals the internal workings of the Italian Liberal policing system, the tensions between its different branches, and problems related to the shifting demands of its wheeler-dealer political masters. Explanations of the support that the Italian police gave to the fascist movement are to be found not only in the profound social, economic, and political transformations characterizing the years immediately following the First World War, but also in Italy's post-unification administrative system. Police support for the Fascists was often morally, if not physically, coerced by the Fascists themselves, while administrative ambiguities and weaknesses hampered any police attempts to repress the movement. The rise of fascism and its support from the police was the logical end result of a tradition of private solutions to problems of law and order. To illustrate this, the book examines the policing of the socialist movement between 1897 and 1918 before analyzing in detail the relationship between the police and the facist movement after the First World War, with a view to comparing behavioral trends emerging during both periods.




Fascism and the Mafia


Book Description

The Sicilian mafia is a subject of endless fascination, but few serious books have been written about it. In this provocative work, Christopher Duggan argues that the idea of the mafia is a fiction, born of political calculation and genuine misunderstanding of the behaviour of Sicilians. The first part of the book looks at the development of the idea of the mafia from the 1860s, when the term first appeared, to the Second World War. Although all serious observers realised that there was no organised criminal society in Sicily, Duggan explains why the idea was perpetuated. When the island became part of unified Italy in 1860, hostility to the new state was claimed by officials to be criminally inspired, and they spoke for the first time of 'the Mafia'. The distinctive values of the Sicilians, such as their belief in private justice and unwillingness to cooperate with the police, reinforced the idea of a secret criminal society. From then on, many of Sicily's political and social problems were attributed to this mythical organisation. In the second part of the book, to illustrate the general observations made in the first, Duggan provides a detailed study of the repressive campaign conducted by the fascist government against the mafia in the 1920s. Making use of private papers, police files, and trial proceedings, he concludes that the mafia was primarily an idea exploited for political ends, and that its use only strengthened many Sicilians' deep mistrust of the state. This lively book is a penetrating account of the origins of the mafia myth and the first study of the impact of fascism on Sicily. It will be of great interest to historians of modern Italy, to anthropologists, and to criminologists, as well as to those who are actively engaged in the fight against organised crime. Christopher Duggan was a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and Lecturer in Italian History and Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of Italian Society at Reading University. He is co-author, with Denis Mack Smith and Moses Finley, of 'A History of Sicily' (1986).




Criminal Law in Liberal and Fascist Italy


Book Description

By extending the chronological parameters of existing scholarship, and by focusing on legal experts' overriding and enduring concern with 'dangerous' forms of common crime, this study offers a major reinterpretation of criminal-law reform and legal culture in Italy from the Liberal (1861–1922) to the Fascist era (1922–43). Garfinkel argues that scholars have long overstated the influence of positivist criminology on Italian legal culture and that the kingdom's penal-reform movement was driven not by the radical criminological theories of Cesare Lombroso, but instead by a growing body of statistics and legal researches that related rising rates of crime to the instability of the Italian state. Drawing on a vast array of archival, legal and official sources, the author explains the sustained and wide-ranging interest in penal-law reform that defined this era in Italian legal history while analyzing the philosophical underpinnings of that reform and its relationship to contemporary penal-reform movements abroad.




Ideology and Criminal Law


Book Description

With populist, nationalist and repressive governments on the rise around the world, questioning the impact of politics on the nature and role of law and the state is a pressing concern. If we are to understand the effects of extreme ideologies on the state's legal dimensions and powers – especially the power to punish and to determine the boundaries of permissible conduct through criminal law – it is essential to consider the lessons of history. This timely collection explores how political ideas and beliefs influenced the nature, content and application of criminal law and justice under Fascism, National Socialism, and other authoritarian regimes in the twentieth century. Bringing together expert legal historians from four continents, the collection's 16 chapters examine aspects of criminal law and related jurisprudential and criminological questions in the context of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Nazi-occupied Norway, apartheid South Africa, Francoist Spain, and the authoritarian regimes of Brazil, Romania and Japan. Based on original archival, doctrinal and theoretical research, the collection offers new critical perspectives on issues of systemic identity, self-perception and the foundational role of criminal law; processes of state repression and the activities of criminal courts and lawyers; and ideological aspects of, and tensions in, substantive criminal law.




Crime and Criminal Justice in Modern Germany


Book Description

The history of criminal justice in modern Germany has become a vibrant field of research, as demonstrated in this volume. Following an introductory survey, the twelve chapters examine major topics in the history of crime and criminal justice from Imperial Germany, through the Weimar and Nazi eras, to the early postwar years. These topics include case studies of criminal trials, the development of juvenile justice, and the efforts to reform the penal code, criminal procedure, and the prison system. The collection also reveals that the history of criminal justice has much to contribute to other areas of historical inquiry: it explores the changing relationship of criminal justice to psychiatry and social welfare, analyzes representations of crime and criminal justice in the media and literature, and uses the lens of criminal justice to illuminate German social history, gender history, and the history of sexuality.




Ideology and Criminal Law


Book Description

With populist, nationalist and repressive governments on the rise around the world, questioning the impact of politics on the nature and role of law and the state is a pressing concern. If we are to understand the effects of extreme ideologies on the state's legal dimensions and powers – especially the power to punish and to determine the boundaries of permissible conduct through criminal law – it is essential to consider the lessons of history. This timely collection explores how political ideas and beliefs influenced the nature, content and application of criminal law and justice under Fascism, National Socialism, and other authoritarian regimes in the twentieth century. Bringing together expert legal historians from four continents, the collection's 16 chapters examine aspects of criminal law and related jurisprudential and criminological questions in the context of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Nazi-occupied Norway, apartheid South Africa, Francoist Spain, and the authoritarian regimes of Brazil, Romania and Japan. Based on original archival, doctrinal and theoretical research, the collection offers new critical perspectives on issues of systemic identity, self-perception and the foundational role of criminal law; processes of state repression and the activities of criminal courts and lawyers; and ideological aspects of, and tensions in, substantive criminal law.