Roberto Cornelli

This study reviews autopsies performed by the Legal Medicine department of the University of Milan from 1990 to 2018. In particular, the characteristics of the perpetrator, the victim and the type of existing relationship, the means used, and the place and time of the crime. A retrospective analysis was conducted, extracting data from the Milan Institute of Legal Medicine database, selecting cases of murder-suicide from the archive between 1990 and 2018 (a total of 75 cases with 84 murder victims). Available data was processed statistically. Univariate and bivariate analysis techniques were mainly used. Significance tests (Chi-square) and correlation studies (Pearson's R) were also conducted, the results of which were then examined and discussed in light of legal, medical and criminological expertise. In almost all cases, suicide followed immediately after the murder, at home and in the context of an emotional relationship. The murderer and person committing suicide is almost al...

Within the law n. 67/2014, the Italian legislation introduced a new kind of pre-trial probation. After a description of the innovative aspects of the law and an analysis of the context in which it wasapproved, an evaluation study (SWOT analysis) conducted in the city of Milan is presented. Based on 23 interviews to stakeholders, the research shows Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats in the application of the new measure. In the light of research findings, the paper proposes a vade-mecum with priority actions to improve the efficacy of the law. Riassunto La legge delega n. 67 del 2014 ha introdotto nell'ordinamento italiano l'istituto della messa alla prova per adulti. Dopo una breve descrizione del contesto in cui si colloca l'introduzione della misura e dopo averne messo in luce le caratteristiche innovative , si analizzano e discutono i risultati di una ricerca valutativa (SWOT analysis) partecipata dagli attori coinvolti a vario titolo nella gestione dei casi di messa alla prova per adulti nell'ambito territoriale del Tribunale di Milano. Basata su 23 interviste, la ricerca illustra i punti di forza e di debolezza, le minacce e le opportunità legate all'applicazione della misura. Alla luce di quanto emerso, l'articolo si conclude con la presentazione di un vademecum di interventi prioritari per migliorare l'efficacia dell'istituto. Parole chiave: messa alla prova • alternatives • swot analysis • giustizia riparativa

SOMMARIO: 1. La religione c’entra? Una premessa culturalista - 2. La violenza organizzata nel mondo e la centralita della guerra siriana - 3. L’ISIS: dall’Iraq alla Siria e recenti sviluppi - 4. Potere o religione? - 5. Chi sono i militanti jihadisti occidentali - 6. Attratti dall’ISIS - 7. Conclusioni. Organized violence and religious affiliation: the case of Isis ABSTRACT: This paper seeks to address the crucial issue of organized violence from a cultural perspective analyzing the case of ISIS, tipically considered as religious group. It intends to elaborate some of the key questions of the debate on the links between religion and violence. The religious nature of ISIS will be disputed throughout its birth and expansion during the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Syrian conflict: more specifically, the paper aims to shed some lights on the grounds underlying the decision of western foreign fighters and Jihadists to join with or refer to a group of fanatics fighting in the faraway lan...

Workers' experience of violence and perceived unsafety can have a profound impact on job satisfaction, job performance, and workers' decision to leave. The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of physical and non-physical violence among hospital workers, explore the complaints and reactions of victims, assess the relationship between violence and psychosocial/work factors and analyze the levels of perceived unsafety. A cross-sectional study was conducted, via a structured self-administered questionnaire given to all the employees of a major hospital in Italy. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to assess the internal consistency of the questionnaire. A logistic regression model was used for data analysis. 903 questionnaires out of 1853 (48.7%) were correctly returned; 11.5% had experience of physical violence and 40.2% had been victims of verbal violence in the previous 12 months. The most common consequences were fear, anger, frustration, and anxiety. Verbal ...

La morte di George Floyd, sottoposto alla tecnica di polizia nota come knee-on-neck, riscopre drammaticamente lacerazioni che nella storia americana trovano nella questione del razzismo un punto di convergenza. Al tempo stesso, l’elevato numero di morti in fermi, arresti e operazioni di law enforcement richiama la necessità di intervenire sull’uso della forza nelle pratiche di polizia, che costituisce negli Stati Uniti un argomento di dibattito e di studio da molti decenni. Dopo una breve ricostruzione dei fatti di Minneapolis e delle proteste che ne sono seguite, il saggio discute i principali risultati della ricerca sulla police brutality al fine di rilevare come la vulgata delle “mele marce” non riesca a cogliere la complessità della questione relativa ai limiti dell’agire di polizia. L’intento è di mostrare come le scelte d’azione del singolo poliziotto si costruiscano in un delicato equilibrio tra diversi processi di legittimazione e nell’intersezione tra soggettività, situazione contingente, sapere istituzionale e sistema culturale. In questa prospettiva, sul finale saranno forniti alcuni spunti per riflettere sul contesto italiano ed europeo. George Floyd’s death due to the police technique known as knee-on-neck tragically rediscovers lacerations related to racism in the American history. At the same time, the high number of casualties in police custody, arrests and law enforcement operations reveals again the need to intervene on the usage of force by the police, an debated and studied issue in the US over decades. After a short reconstruction of the Minneapolis case and the protests thereof, the paper focuses on the main results of the research on police brutality in order to point out how the ‘bad apples’ tale is not capable of explaining the complexity of the limits to police actions. The aim is to demonstrate how the operative choices of the single policeman are made of a delicate equilibrium among several legitimation processes as well as the intersection of subjectivity, contingent situation, institutional knowledge and cultural system. From the said standpoint, in conclusion some reflections will be offered on the Italian and European framework. La muerte de George Floyd, sometido a la técnica policial conocida como rodilla-en-cuello, abre nuevamente heridas existentes en la historia norteamericana sobre el racismo. Al mismo tiempo, el alto número de muertes en detenciones, arrestos y operaciones policiales justifica la necesidad de intervenir sobre el uso de la fuerza por parte de la policía, tema que ha sido debatido y estudiado durante muchas décadas en los Estados Unidos. Después de una breve reconstrucción de los eventos de Minneapolis y las protestas que siguieron, el articulo discute los principales resultados de la investigación sobre brutalidad policial a fin de detectar cómo la tesis de las "manzanas podridas" no logra comprender la complejidad del problema relacionado con los límites del actuar policial. El trabajo busca demostrar cómo las elecciones de acción de los agentes de policía individualmente considerados se construyen sobre un delicado equilibrio entre diferentes procesos de legitimación y sobre la intersección entre subjetividad, situaciones contingentes, saber institucional y sistema cultura. En esta perspectiva, se proporcionarán algunas ideas al final para reflexionar sobre el contexto italiano y europeo

This contribution defines ‘Megan’s Laws’as ‘message laws’, that is, those penal laws that carry a message not only coherent with the cultural impetus supporting their adoption but also anticipating something that is not (yet) acceptable to manifest openly in Western politics. First, we describe how this message is generally considered more important than the actual results produced by these laws in terms of efficiency, and how it also intervenes on issues causing waves of moral and perpetual panic. Second, we observe how, in the specific case of sex offender registration and notification laws, two important messages are at stake: that sex offenders deserve perpetual punitivity and that the community has the right/duty to control their behaviours. Finally, we suggest that ‘message laws’ can be considered a wake-up call on maintaining the democratic project.

I sette contributi che compongono il dossier sono l'esito di un seminario tenutosi presso l'Università degli studi di Milano nell'ambito delle attività del Cepoc (Centro per lo studio delle polizie e del controllo del territorio). In quella occasione si sono discussi quattro volumi di recente pubblicazione (editi tra il 2018 e il 2019) aventi per oggetto diversi aspetti di storia delle polizie in Italia in età contemporanea, con la partecipazione sia degli autori e curatori dei volumi, sia di studiosi della materia. Ne esce un quadro articolato e problematizzato degli indirizzi secondo i quali in Italia si va consolidando una storiografia dedicata a questi temi, sin qui relativamente trascurati con riferimento all'età contemporanea. Nello stesso tempo si offrono numerosi gli spunti, anche in chiave interdisciplinare, utili a stimolare nuove linee di ricerca. In questo contributo l'autore discute i volumi di Michele Di Giorgio, Per una polizia nuova. Il movimento ...

Resumo O presente artigo trata de várias formas de se entender a ética na crimino- logia, concentrando-se nas estatísticas sobre o "medo da criminalidade". Entre as di- mensões freqüentemente relacionadas, ao se abordar ética e criminologia, estão o atendimento aos direitos da pessoa, a limitação das técnicas de obtenção de informa- ção, os procedimentos do método de investigação, ou a

SOMMARIO: 1. La religione c'entra? Una premessa culturalista-2. La violenza organizzata nel mondo e la centralità della guerra siriana-3. L'ISIS: dall'Iraq alla Siria e recenti sviluppi-4. Potere o religione?-5. Chi sono i militanti jihadisti occidentali-6. Attratti dall'ISIS-7. Conclusioni.

Attraverso la rievocazione del rapporto tra paura e pena e l’analisi dei tratti fondamentali del populismo
contemporaneo, in questo articolo propongo una definizione di populismo penale più stringente rispetto al
concetto di penal punitiveness da cui ha preso le mosse la letteratura internazionale sul tema. La maggior parte
degli studiosi, infatti, lo associa a un programma politico di espansione dell’area penalmente rilevante, a un tipo di
retorica politica sulla questione criminale o all’emersione di nuovi attori che influenzano il dibattito e le politiche
sulla pena. In questo modo, tuttavia, si rischia di costruire una categoria interpretativa onnicomprensiva che in
definitiva impoverisce la lettura di un campo, quello della penalità, attraversato da tendenze e istanze diverse e non
sempre coerenti e lineari. ”Contro il panpopulismo” è dunque un invito a recuperare uno sguardo articolato sulle
dinamiche della politica criminale e, al tempo stesso, a cogliere con più chiarezza i contorni dei progetti populisti
e i pericoli che la loro affermazione comporta rispetto alla tenuta dei sistemi democratico-costituzionali

En este trabajo se propone una definición más rigurosa de populismo punitivo, a fin de evitar su uso como
sinónimo de política penal punitiva y no subestimar las características de los proyectos populistas. "Contra el
panpopulismo" es una invitación a recuperar una visión amplia de la dinámica de la política criminal y, al mismo
tiempo, a comprender con mayor claridad los peligros que conlleva el populismo con respecto a los sistemas
democrático-constitucionales

In this paper a tighter definition of penal populism is proposed in order to avoid its use as synonymous of punitive penal policy and to not underestimate the characteristics of populist projects. "Against pan-populism" is an
invitation to recover a wide look at the dynamics of criminal policy and, at the same time, to grasp more clearly
the dangers that populism entails with respect to democratic-constitutional systems

La morte di George Floyd, sottoposto alla tecnica di polizia nota come knee-on-neck, riscopre drammaticamente
lacerazioni che nella storia americana trovano nella questione del razzismo un punto di convergenza. Al tempo
stesso, l’elevato numero di morti in fermi, arresti e operazioni di law enforcement richiama la necessità di intervenire
sull’uso della forza nelle pratiche di polizia, che costituisce negli Stati Uniti un argomento di dibattito e di studio
da molti decenni.
Dopo una breve ricostruzione dei fatti di Minneapolis e delle proteste che ne sono seguite, il saggio discute i
principali risultati della ricerca sulla police brutality al fine di rilevare come la vulgata delle “mele marce” non riesca
a cogliere la complessità della questione relativa ai limiti dell’agire di polizia. L’intento è di mostrare come le
scelte d’azione del singolo poliziotto si costruiscano in un delicato equilibrio tra diversi processi di legittimazione
e nell’intersezione tra soggettività, situazione contingente, sapere istituzionale e sistema culturale.
In questa prospettiva, sul finale saranno forniti alcuni spunti per riflettere sul contesto italiano ed europeo.

George Floyd’s death due to the police technique known as knee-on-neck tragically rediscovers lacerations related to racism in the American history. At the same time, the high number of casualties in police custody, arrests
and law enforcement operations reveals again the need to intervene on the usage of force by the police, an debated
and studied issue in the US over decades. After a short reconstruction of the Minneapolis case and the protests
thereof, the paper focuses on the main results of the research on police brutality in order to point out how the ‘bad
apples’ tale is not capable of explaining the complexity of the limits to police actions. The aim is to demonstrate
how the operative choices of the single policeman are made of a delicate equilibrium among several legitimation
processes as well as the intersection of subjectivity, contingent situation, institutional knowledge and cultural
system. From the said standpoint, in conclusion some reflections will be offered on the Italian and European
framework.

La muerte de George Floyd, sometido a la técnica policial conocida como rodilla-en-cuello, abre nuevamente
heridas existentes en la historia norteamericana sobre el racismo. Al mismo tiempo, el alto número de muertes en
detenciones, arrestos y operaciones policiales justifica la necesidad de intervenir sobre el uso de la fuerza por parte
de la policía, tema que ha sido debatido y estudiado durante muchas décadas en los Estados Unidos. Después
de una breve reconstrucción de los eventos de Minneapolis y las protestas que siguieron, el articulo discute los
principales resultados de la investigación sobre brutalidad policial a fin de detectar cómo la tesis de las "manzanas
podridas" no logra comprender la complejidad del problema relacionado con los límites del actuar policial. El
trabajo busca demostrar cómo las elecciones de acción de los agentes de policía individualmente considerados
se construyen sobre un delicado equilibrio entre diferentes procesos de legitimación y sobre la intersección entre
subjetividad, situaciones contingentes, saber institucional y sistema cultura. En esta perspectiva, se proporcionarán
algunas ideas al final para reflexionar sobre el contexto italiano y europeo

At the international level, while the research on policing is firmly consolidated especially in the Anglo-Saxon countries, the issue of trust in the police continue to receive too little attention. This occurs despite trust is considered a key resource for the police, who need citizens' support for the activities of order maintenance, criminal investigation and crime prevention. However, recent studies on Procedural Justice have developed the thinking on the concept of legitimacy that is of great interest also for the research on trust in the police. Starting from these suggestions, this article presents main results of a quantitative study on trust in the police carried out on the Italian dataset of the International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD3). The aim is to expand the boundaries of the research in this field both from the methodological standpoint, by introducing the concept of " emotional field " , and from the standpoint of the subjects considered, who, unlike other studies on trust, are minors. The results are relevant with respect to the intentions: they provide a first empirical consistency to the concept of " emotional field " , allowing to get out of the single-item measures generally used to describe emotional states; they confirm the adequacy of the assumptions of the procedural justice approach; they indicate some critical points, often missed in previous studies, of the young people-police relationship.

A livello internazionale, gli studi sulle polizie costituiscono un ambito di ricerca ormai decisamente affermato, soprattutto nei Paesi anglosassoni, mentre il tema della fiducia nella polizia continua a ricevere meno attenzione. Ciò avviene nonostante la fi-ducia sia considerata una risorsa fondamentale per la polizia, la quale necessita di supporto e collaborazione da parte dei cittadini per il mantenimento dell'ordine, per le attività d'investigazione criminale e per le iniziative di prevenzione della criminalità. Di recente, tuttavia, nel solco della ricerca sulla Procedural Justice si è sviluppata una riflessione sul concetto di legittimità che risulta di grande interesse anche per lo studio della fiducia nella polizia. A partire da queste suggestioni, l'articolo presenta i risultati di uno studio quantitativo sulla fiducia nella polizia sulla base dei dati italiani della ISRD3 riferiti al campione di giovani frequentanti una scuola superiore. Lo studio intende ampliare l'oriz-zonte della ricerca in questo settore sia dal punto di vista metodologico, introducendo il concetto di " campo emotivo " , sia dal punto di vista dei soggetti considerati, che, a differenza della maggior parte degli studi sulla fiducia, in questo caso sono minorenni. I risultati appaiono rilevanti rispetto agli intendimenti: forniscono una prima consistenza empirica al concetto di " campo " emotivo " , consentendo di uscire dalla strettoia delle single-item measures per descrivere gli stati emotivi; confermano l'ap-propriatezza delle ipotesi su cui sta lavorando la ricerca sulla procedural justice; segnalano alcune criticità, spesso non rilevate dagli studi sulla fiducia, nel rapporto tra giovani e forze dell'ordine.

In a sociological perspective trust is considered an essential component of all social relationships. The importance of trust in interpersonal relationships has been recognised also by criminologists: scholars of community policing and crime prevention believe that raising levels of trust between residents and police is crucial for the success of current crime control and security strategies. But how do police increase people’s trust?
A document of the Danish Presidency of the Council of European Union (7521/03 ENFOPOL 19) on “Best practice concerning neighbourhood and community policing” shows that implementing strategies to enhance people’s trust in the police  is a key task for  Member States police to implement strategies to enhance people trust in the police, and that the major strategy focuses on the physical proximity between police and community. Frequent foot, bicycle or motorised patrols make the public aware of a police presence and increase people’s trust and sense of security. But are we sure that more police visibility (police-citizens contacts and police presence) enhances people’s trust in the police?

This thesis tackles why people trust the police.
Chapter 1 is an introductory chapter aimed at explaining why it is
important to study which factors affect people’s trust in the police.
It begins by considering that the police, faced with a crisis in public
security, new trends in policing and police ineffectiveness in preventing
crime, risk losing their legitimacy (para. 1.1). It also considers that the
police are reacting to this crisis by developing strategies aimed at increasing
people’s trust in them. This is also occurring because recent studies have
emphasised the importance of trust in the police for the success of crime
prevention and insecurity reduction strategies (para. 1.2). Although the call
for developing and sustaining these trust-oriented strategies has been loud,
it is recognised that we need to know ‘if’ and ‘how’ police’ work may
affect people’s trust in the police (para. 1.3). This thesis, therefore, looks at
the reason why people trust the police, in order to know if and how police
work may affect people’s trust in the police (para. 1.4).
In chapter 2, a review of extant research literature in the area of trust
and trust in the police is presented.
7
The chapter starts by tackling theoretical issues on trust in human and
social sciences in order to learn why people trust the police. From this
review two different perspectives about why people trust the police are
discussed. In the first, people trust the police because they have a subjective
inclination to do so; in the second, people trust the police because police
actions induce them to do so (para. 2.1). Next, the chapter reviews studies
on factors of trust in the police, in order to learn which perspective
regarding why people trust the police has more support from empirical
research (para. 2.2). Considering that the findings of previous studies do not
provide a definitive answer, at the end of the chapter three research
hypotheses on which variables affect trust in the police are formulated
(para. 2.3).
Chapter 3 presents the design and methodology used to test the
research hypotheses.
Data from a survey of residents’ attitudes towards police in Trentino, a
northern Italian province, are analysed. The chapter begins by providing
information on where the survey was conducted (para. 3.1). Then, it
answers the methodological issues that arise from the following questions:
how did the survey collect data? How was the sample selected? How was
the data analysed to test the research hypotheses? How were dependent and
independent variables measured? (para. 3.2). Next, the chapter presents the
main findings of the data analyses (para. 3.3).
In conclusion, chapter 4 discusses the findings and examines the
implications as well as makes recommendations for future research.

We report the results of the second self-reported juvenile delinquency survey (ISRD2), carried out in Italy 14 years after the first (ISRD1) survey (Gatti et al., 1994). The second survey differs from the first in some important respects: the questionnaire, which was drawn up by the international coordination group, has partly been changed, the sample surveyed is much larger and has been extended to 15 towns, as opposed to 3 in the first study; in addition, the current sample includes 7th-, 8th-, 9th- and 10th-grade students, while the 1992 sample comprised students from the 9th to the 13th grade. A comparison of the results of the two surveys is, therefore, particularly complex (though not impossible) and, for the moment, will not be considered. It should be pointed out that the mean age of the Italian sample is higher than that of most of the samples examined in the ISRD2 survey. This is because it includes the 10th grade, while the samples considered in the other countries are generally limited to the 7th, 8th and 9th grades. In order to compare the results of the Italian study with those of the other countries, it will therefore be necessary to exclude 10th-grade students from the analysis.