In principle, a detailed analysis of the relationship between crime and immigration calls for examination of the social composition of the country of origin and that of destination, and the patterns of criminality in each. Furthermore, the country of origin should be studied to establish whether the same deviancy ratio that exists in the general population is present in the immigrant sample, and what kind of relationship there is between the organisers of and the participants in illegal immigration. Analysis of the host country should include a study of indigenous crime, of whether the characteristics of the native criminal groups tend to favour or exclude immigrant recruitment, and of what changes or modifications, if any, are made to accommodate immigrants. In other words, is the immigrant group, or potentially criminal elements within it, considered a source of menial labour, of potential partnership or, if capable of autonomous enterprise, of rivalry?

The number of foreigners from developing countries charged or arrested for criminal activities has almost doubled in the five-year period 1991–1995 (see Table 8 below). The percentage of foreigners among those charged and detained is higher in the northern regions and the big cities.⁴³ The nationalities involved correspond more or less to the largest immigrant communities, with the notable absence of Filipinos.

Data from the Ministry of the Interior highlight that, in the ten years from 1986 to 1995, the overall numbers of foreigners who entered prison in the course of a given year rose by more than 500 percent, from 4,307 in 1986 to 23,225 in 1995, with a peak of 26,175 in 1994.⁴⁴ In 1996, foreign inmates represented 26.4 percent of the total prison population. Caritas reports that the percentage of foreigners who entered prison increased from 16 percent to 28 percent between 1991 and 1996 (see Table 9 below).⁴⁵

Yet, these figures must be analysed carefully. Many of the people arrested may have been detained for only a few hours or days; indeed, when the numbers for a specific day of the year are studied over a five-year period, the increase is still evident, but much more contained. While there were 4,017 non-Italians out of a total prison population of 25,804 (15.6 percent) on 31 December 1990, there were 8,334 foreigners (396 women) out of a total prison population of 46,908 (17.8 percent) on 31 December 1995.⁴⁶ At the same time, foreigners are more likely to be sentenced to jail for the same crime, since they often lack the prerequisites (residence and working permits, etc.) for alternative regimes of punishment.

As for the proportion among the main geographic areas from which inmates come, they have remained relatively unchanged in the last few years (see Table 10 below).

As mentioned in the Ministry of the Interior’s report presented in 1997, a survey carried out in five major Italian prisons shows that of 1,468 non-EU nationals, 1,225 – or 83 percent of the total – were without residence permits (as compared to 4.6 percent with regular permits).⁴⁷ The high percentage of illegal immigrants among the total number of non-Italian criminals suggests that immigrant criminality may be at least as much, if not more, a function of being clandestine than of being an immigrant per se.

The difficulties in making even a rough estimate of irregular immigration flows are inevitably reflected in any analysis of the social composition of the immigrant population and lead to ‘statistical’ calculations of dubious reliability. One example can be found in the figures concerning the association between criminality and immigration. The assumption (‘hypothesis’) of the Ministry of the Interior, drawn from the empirical study on foreign inmates in prison, is that 83 percent of the aggregate (all nationalities) irregular immigrant population commit crimes. When this hypothesis is applied to single immigrant groups it leads to surprising results, to say the least. Thus in the report on organised crime presented to the parliament in 1997 by the Minister of Interior, one of the tables shows that in the 1991–1995 period there were 66,112 irregular Albanian immigrants in Italy, and that the number who committed crimes in the same period were 85,450 . . .

The increase in the prison population in many European countries is due to a strong increment in foreign nationals and ethnic minority members either remanded to detention facilities or serving prison sentences. It has been argued that is in line with a preoccupation of the criminal justice systems with drug markets and drug trafficking which – as a part of shadow economies – attract some of the immigrant population and thus serve as ‘pull factors’.⁴⁹

Italy cannot be properly compared with countries like France, where a significant number of immigrants enjoys the status of naturalised citizens. It is possible to try a comparison with countries such as Germany, Switzerland or Sweden. In recent years, the three countries show a percentage of foreigners charged with robbery, theft and drug law offences ranging between 30 and 40 percent, compared to 28–35 percent registered in Italy for the same crimes. As it appears, there is no major difference in numbers, especially if we consider that Sweden, Switzerland and Germany have a much higher percentage of immigrants within the overall population.

During the 1990s, the percentage of foreigners out of the total number of inmates in Italy has ranged between 16 percent and 28 percent (see Table 9 above). In Germany, the percentage has risen considerably, reaching approximately 25 percent in 1994. While the number of young German inmates has dropped, the presence of young foreigners has been on a continuous increase.⁵⁰ In Belgium, the share of foreigners within the overall prison population rose from 16.7 percent in 1974 to 41.1 percent in 1994. Research indicates that the rise was largely due to the illegal nature of immigrant entry into the country, while entry into prison, it is suggested, is conditioned by factors that are different for foreigners than for native Belgians. For Belgians, prison is a place for the expiation of a sentence for a specific crime committed by the individual concerned. For foreigners, imprisonment can almost be seen as a preventive measure ‘ . . . permitting, on the pretext of an infraction, the elimination of a part of the population considered threatening to public security without the apparent need to justify this elimination or to prove the existence of a threat by a criminal court verdict’.⁵¹

As shown in Table 11 below, most crimes attributed to foreigners between 1991 and 1995 were property crimes (mainly thefts), followed by disobedience towards persons in authority. These two categories represented 60 percent of total offences. During the period in consideration, drug offences outweighed the number of crimes related to violation of immigration laws. Moreover, the categories which typically relate to organised crime (arms and drug trafficking, smuggling, prostitution) have been growing over the time.

The number of foreigners charged and arrested for the types of crime shown in Table 11 total 328,266 – a lower number than the crimes themselves, as some may be habitual offenders or accused of more than one crime. Of this total number, 310,590 (or 94.4 percent) are immigrants from developing countries. There is also a growing percentage of crimes committed by minors; of minors charged with theft, almost half are foreigners,⁵² and Albanian minors are considered ‘at risk’ of exploitation.⁵³

The evolution of the three levels shows a shift from Italians to foreigners at the drug dealing level. This is evident in the case of the heroin market: from 1991 to 1997, the number of Italian dealers was reduced by half, while the number of foreigners doubled. These data are consistent with the so-called ‘substitution hypothesis’ for lower levels of crime, whereby ‘unskilled labour’ can take the risk of a higher degree of visibility. However, the percentage of foreigners investigated for drug-related crimes has grown even more rapidly at high levels: in 1997 for example, 37 percent of traffickers were foreigners, while the percentage of foreigners among drug dealers was only 28 percent.

Of the total number of foreigners prosecuted for drug offences, Mahgreb citizens constituted 63 percent in 1991, 59.7 percent in 1992, 66.9 percent in 1993 and 65.9 percent in 1995. For the period, the involvement of Albanians in this category of crime was small but growing. Overall, Albania ranked 21^st out of 142 countries for the number of nationals prosecuted for drug-related offences. Judging from the increase in Albanian cannabis cultivation and trafficking to Italy (see Section 4.2), this figure is likely to rise sharply.

Prostitution itself is not a crime in Italy, but, according to Italian Law 75/58, ‘incitement to, exploitation of and abetting prostitution’ are criminal acts.

Prostitution rackets represent one of the lowest risk criminal activities in which immigrants are involved, thanks to relatively permissive Italian legislation and to high economic remuneration. Each day, considerable numbers of women are brought into Italy illegally for this purpose.

Italian women involved in prostitution abandoned the lowest levels of the trade in the early 1990s, with the concomitant arrival of foreigners, especially of refugees from Eastern European countries. There was another sharp increase in arrivals in 1991 and 1992, when a second wave came from Africa and South America. This was followed by a massive influx in 1993–1994 of mainly Albanians and Nigerians.

In 1994, out of a total of 967 persons charged with crimes relating to prostitution, 258 were non-Italian.⁵⁵ Of them, the greatest national share was Albanian, with 70 persons charged, amounting to 27 percent of the non-Italian total and 7.2 percent of the overall total. The next largest national group was the former Yugoslavia, with 65 (25 percent and 6.7 percent). Of the 258 foreigners, 55 were female. By the following year, the Albanian share of prostitution offences had grown to 47.5 percent of the non-Italian total, with 226 of the 476 persons charged.

Several ethnic groups are active in criminal activities related to prostitution. There is no evidence of major conflicts among them, nor with other Italian or international organisations, probably due to an efficient ‘division of labour’ and a precise geographic collocation. Criminals involved in exploitation of prostitution appear to be split up into small organisations (4–5 people); most likely, there is a link among ethnic groups and the larger international organisations that manage illegal immigration flows. Exploitation of prostitution by organised crime is examined in Section 4.2.