My research program has focused in recent years and still focuses on studying the relationship between crime, punishment and migration. I have been conducting a research on Youth Gangs, which focuses on the phenomenon of street youth gatherings (sometimes defined as gangs) and pursues also the aim of reconstructing the presence of such youth organizations in Emilia-Romagna, and in particular in some of the Region's realities, according to models developed within the various sociological traditions. In addition, more generally, I have a number of research activities that are grouped around two fundamental strands: on the one hand, comparisons, with regard to crime, punishment and migration, between the situation in the European Union and that in the United States. On the other hand, I wonder how important the overall process of building a migrant as a criminal and the other is in order to understand the process of unification and democratic constitutionalization of the European Union.
My research activity has been pursuing, for several years now, a program aimed at deepening the relationship between the crime and deviance phenomenon, also starting from the socio-juridical practices of attributing criminal and/or deviant status and the migratory phenomenon, in its various aspects. This research activity has been articulated in a variety of ways, often in a collaborative relationship with the Emilia-Romagna Regional Security and Local Police Bureau. I did research on foreign minors through the so-called self-report investigative tool, with particular reference to "second generation" migrants. This line of research has already resulted in a significant number of publications (MELOSSI, Dario, Alessandro De Giorgi and Ester Massa 2008 "Foreign Minorities Between Regulatory Conflict and Deviance: The Second Generation Is Confessing?", Sociology of Law, 35: 99-130; MELOSSI, Dario, Alessandro De Giorgi, and Ester Massa, 2009 The 'Normality' of 'Second Generations' in Italy and the Importance of Legal Status: A Self-Report Delinquency Study, pp.47-65 in W. McDonald (Ed.), Immigration, Crime and Justice Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, Volume 13 Bingley, UK: Emerald / JAI Press, MELOSSI, Dario (with Stefania Crocitti, Ester Massa and Dino Gibertoni) 2011 Deviance and Immigration: Schools of Emilia-Romagna, Safe Cities Quaderni 37, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna Region, CROCITTI, Stefania, 2011 - Foreign and Italian minorities between school, work and deviance: A self-report survey, SSQC, vi, no. 1, 2011, pp. 65-106). This activity continues now through research on Youth Gangs, which is also conducted in collaboration with the Office for Security and Local Police Policies of the Emilia-Romagna Region. This research on the phenomenon of street youth aggregations (sometimes defined as gangs) pursues the aim of reconstructing the presence of youth organizations that can be traced back to specific criminological models. Conducted in collaboration with research associate Stefania Crocitti, the research is divided into three phases over two years. In a first phase, already completed, a description of the phenomenon, definition of the definitions and contextual observation was made. In a second phase, also completed, a qualitative study is being carried out in some areas of the region, through interviews with expert witnesses and young first and second generation migrants. Finally, in a third phase, the results will be analyzed - both quantitatively and qualitatively - in relation to the definition and the typical characters of the gangs, but also to the formulation of hypotheses on the consistency and potential development of Youth gangs in Emilia-Romagna. Particular attention will also be devoted to finding ways to respond to the phenomenon. At this stage, institutional response interventions in an international context (especially in Spain and the United States) will be analyused. More generally, on the subject of crime and immigration, I have been carrying out various research activities that have contributed to writing a text entitled Crime Punishment and Migration and various interventions in the form of essays, articles and chapters of books, the contents of which are grouped around two fundamental research lines. On the one hand, the comparison between the situation of migrants in the European Union and migrants and ethnic minorities in the United States. In particular, a strategy of investigation attempts to focus on the puzzle of crime, punishment and migration between the United States and Europe through the hypothesis of an extension of the less eligibility concept, developed by Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer. In the reconstruction of the relationship between punishment and social structure, in the new era of globalization, a less eligibility within the new transnational context is being considered. At the same time, I wonder how important the overall process of building a migrant as a criminal and "the other" is in order to understand the process of democratic unification and constitutionalization of the European Union. The latter also constitutes a course of analysis that has been going on for a number of years and in which I have sought to associate socio-criminological concerns with elements of legal and political theory.
