Criminalization waves in Portugal

1
Criminalization waves in Portugal
António Pedro Dores,
http//iscte.pt/apad
Toulouse, 19/21 October 2007
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Summary

• Social integration problems in Portugal
• Immigrant's social classification in Portugal
• Ethnic discriminative feelings in Portugal
• Non Nationals criminalization data
• Causes of criminalization waves
• Criminalization processing

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Social integration problems

• Poor and ideological biased Welfare State
• Egoistic regional, social and age concentration
  of wealth
• State use of clandestine working class
• Working class neighbourhoods racial and youth
  tension
• Unemployment problems emerges

4
Immigrant's social classification

• No Muslim public discrimination problem they
  are respected and moderate minorities, as are
  Jews or Buddhists.
• Immigrant social studies are focused on Africans,
  Brazilians and East European people.

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Ethnic discriminative feelings

• Asian immigrants exist. Two times it happens
  isolated political discriminating declarations
  against Chinese business (Madeira and Lisbon).
• Stronger has been the episode of a fake
  collective robbery (allegedly 500 black people)
  in a popular beach near Lisbon

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Discriminative social feelings (II)

• Brazilian dentists are the first immigrant wave
  to Portugal, in the late 80s. Discrimination by
  doctors professional association stopped by
  diplomatic arrangements. They represented an up
  grade modernization of teeth care in Portugal.

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Discriminative social feelings (III)

• Eastern Europe immigrant came by late 90s and
  are welcomed by press arguing they were very
  well educated (engineers and doctors working as
  workers at building industry).
• The same people has been stigmatized as Eastern
  mafias by security services, as a way to
  legitimate taught control against intensive
  immigrant wave

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Discriminative social feelings (IV)

• Many dozens of Eastern doctors immigrated in
  Portugal has been recruited by FCG in order to be
  recognized as professionals to help Portuguese
  health care system lake of doctors.

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Non Nationals criminalization data

• Fonte http//www.dgsp.mj.pt/frameset_info.html,
  2-10-2007

Percentage of foreigner inmates in Portuguese
prisons
Number of inmates (comparing foreigner inmates)
10
Gender criminalization of foreigners
11
Nationality criminalization
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What are the causes for the criminalization waves?

• International politics (fear of new kind of
  immigrants inside EU, for instance)
• National mood to accept international politics
  (historical national feelings about other people
  semi-peripherical society)
• National State policies on migration

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Traditional criminalization

• Lake of knowledge about social power taboos
• one figures prison as the house of criminals,
  even when holocaust is happening
• secrecy of criminalization policies (court,
  police, prison system, statistics)
• political influences over judicial decisions
• institutional equilibrium between state powers.

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Political criminalization

• Clandestine political opposition wrote the
  history of criminalization waves against it
• Today we are free to know what happened (60s),
  when it is all over
• Most inmate do not read or write , do not know
  their rights
• The knowledge about changing prison lives is
  social taboo state secret

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Recent criminalization waves in Portugal

• Disciplining bank check uses (80s) first
  changing movements to capitalism
• War on drugs (90s) caused overcrowded prisons
  and increment drug dealing profits (including
  inside prisons)

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Old criminalization waves political historical
and social relevance

• Jews (250 years Portuguese Inquisition)
• Jesuits
• Gypsies (we know it because they resist several
  expulsion policies) (foreigners has 5 times their
  representation in prison and gypsies have 10
  times)

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Criminalization processing

• Decriminalization waves the bank check the drug
  consume
• Politics and legislative processing (socialist
  security politics in Portugal)
• Judiciary politics and policy (the mission of the
  Prosecutor General the ideological and social
  education of Portuguese judges the crisis of
  justice in Portugal and around the world)

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Criminalization processing (II)

• Economic waves state interest on recruiting
  cheap labour force and corruption syndrome on the
  control of legislative and judicial executive
  tasks
• Administrative waves institutional preparation
  to receive immigrants in Portugal
• Incarceration waves

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Criminalization processing (III)
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• The End

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Social integration problems

• Welfare State is weak in Portugal (it has been
  established after democratic revolution 1974).
• Inequality index is the biggest in Europe very
  sharp difference between Lisbon region, political
  centre and more European like way of life, and
  the rest of the country, specially the
  countryside.

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Social integration problems (II)

• Portuguese development dependent on
  infrastructures State investment programs.
• Extensive use of precarious foreigner men workers
  on building and tourism industries. Women at home
  and cleaning industrial services strong appeal
  to immigrant workers.

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Social integration problems (III)

• Housing problems because renting market is very
  short and selling market is closed to foreigners.
• Social housing has been a problem by lake of
  places available for every needed family, since
  recently.
• Social housing begins to be, overall, a problem
  for conviviality inside excluded neighbourhoods
  and through metropolitan areas.

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Social integration problems (IV)

• In the 90s Portugal lived without unemployment
  problems. Since than the situation changed.
• Education and training the worse handicap of
  Portuguese society (as well as justice system
  inefficiency).