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The police and the urban ‘dangerous classes’: the culture and practice of public law and order in Milan after national unity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2015

SIMONA MORI
SIMONA MORI*
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia, Università degli studi di Bergamo, via Pignolo 123, 24121 Bergamo, Italy
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Abstract:

The city of Milan during the second half of the nineteenth century is the field of observation for this study, which focuses on urban policing and social control in a situation that ultimately caused problems for the whole country. The case of Milan, which has not received enough attention in this regard, is particularly interesting, given its status as the northern metropolis. It was the second largest population centre in Italy and the most important economic one, a leader in the late struggle for political independence and an opponent at that time of the centralizing policies of the nation-state.1

Type
Special section on policing and urban crisis
Information
Urban History , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , May 2016 , pp. 266 - 284
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

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19 Inspector Baglioni, 29 Mar. 1874 (ibid.).

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32 Bigatti, La città operosa, 143; Sapori, ‘L’economia milanese’, 866.

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34 Population growth in Milan in the period 1872–1901 was 16 per cent due to internal population increase and 84 per cent due to immigration, according to Gallo, S., Senza attraversare le frontiere. Le migrazioni interne dall’Unità a oggi (Rome and Bari, 2012), 60Google Scholar.

35 Del Panta, Evoluzione demografica, 90.

36 A light and shade picture of the previous situation is in Bigatti, La città operosa.

37 Ibid., 174.

38 See generally Bigatti, La città operosa, 146ff.

39 Sapori, ‘L’economia milanese’, 867.

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42 Davis, Conflict and Control, 244ff.

43 Frégier, H.-A., Des classes dangereuses de la population dans les grandes villes, et des moyens de les rendre meilleures (Brussels, 1840)Google Scholar, was the most cited.

44 Cantarella, ‘Introduzione’, XVII.

45 Corio, Milano in ombra (abissi plebei), first published in 1876 in the magazine La vita nuova; Valera, P., Milano sconosciuta (1879) (Milan, 1967)Google Scholar; Arrighi, C. (ed.), Il ventre di Milano. Fisiologia della capitale morale per cura di una società di letterati, 2 vols. (Milan, 1888)Google Scholar. On the subject of this trend in the literature on crime, see Chevalier, L., Classi lavoratrici e classi pericolose. Parigi nella rivoluzione industriale (Laterza, 1976)Google Scholar, 85ff, and more specifically Pick, D., Faces of Degeneration: A European Disorder, 1848–c. 1918 (Cambridge, 1989), 20–1, 97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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48 Bolis, La polizia, 459 (author's translation).

49 Bonino, M., La polizia italiana nella seconda metà dell’Ottocento. Aspetti culturali e operativi (Rome, 2006)Google Scholar, 91ff, with a thorough commentary on Locatelli's first work.

50 Locatelli, Sorveglianti, 7.

51 Lombroso, C., L’uomo delinquente (Milan, 1876)Google Scholar.

52 Gibson, M., Born to Crime: Cesare Lombroso and the Origins of Biological Criminology (Westport, 2002), XV, XXI, 5Google Scholar.

53 See for example Lombroso, C., Sull’incremento del delitto in Italia e sui mezzi per arrestarlo (Turin, 1879), 2Google Scholar.

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57 Alongi, Polizia e delinquenza, 32. On the aggressive attitude that seems to have prevailed by the 1880s, see Mori, S., ‘Becoming policemen in nineteenth-century Italy: police gender culture through the lens of professional manuals’, in Barrie, D.G. and Broomhall, S. (eds.), A History of Police and Masculinities, 1700–2010 (London, 2012), 102–22 (at 112–13)Google Scholar.

58 Alongi, Polizia e delinquenza, 39.

59 Direzione Generale della Statistica, Movimento della delinquenza secondo le statistiche degli anni 1873–1883 (Florence, 1886), XLVII–XLVIIIGoogle Scholar. In spite of its limited reliability, counting only charges, this is the main synoptic source for estimating the incidence of criminality at that time (cf. Melossi, D., ‘Andamento economico, incarcerazione, omicidi e allarme sociale in Italia: 1863–1994’, in Violante, L. (ed.), La criminalità. Storia d’Italia. Annali 12 (Turin, 1997), 37–63Google Scholar.

60 Berselli, ‘Amministrazione’, 202.

61 Marcionni, L., La pubblica sicurezza, le ammonizioni e la polizia giudiziaria in Milano (Milan, 1877), 3ffGoogle Scholar.

62 Crimes of aggravated larceny brought yearly before the Milan Court of Appeal (Direzione Generale di Statistica, Movimento della delinquenza, passim): 3192 (1875), 2742 (1876), 1800 (1877), 2223 (1878), 2881 (1879), 2869 (1880), 2500 (1881), 2265 (1882), 2415 (1883), 1844 (1884).

63 Cases of theft brought before the Milan Court of Appeal: 1959, 2366, 2062, 1843, 1885, 1798 (years 1779–84). Resistance to authority: 443, 443, 884, 1304, 854, 1282, 898, 473, 589, 498 (years 1775–84). Robbery: 94, 190, 254, 206, 198, 129, 124, 107, 109, 94 (years 1775–84). Murder: 53, 45, 42, 92, 78, 89, 61, 74, 63, 53 (years 1775–84). Direzione Generale di Statistica, Movimento della delinquenza.

64 Questore Restellli, six-monthly report, 5 Jan. 1880, in ASMi, QG, f. 105. On this image, see G. Consonni and G. Tonon, ‘La terra degli ossimori’, in Bigazzi and Meriggi (eds.), Storia d’Italia. La Lombardia, 114.

65 The Scapigliatura was the Milanese ‘boheme’, an artistic and literary movement that reacted to the prevailing bourgeois culture in the urban contests by the second half of the nineteenth century.

66 Report on City Section IV, 1 Jan. 1884 (ASMi, QG, f. 106).

67 Report on Section VIII, 22 Jan. 1885 (ASMi, QG. f. 106).

68 Ibid.

69 Questore Amour, 1 Jul. 1879 (ASMi, QG, f. 105).

70 Questore Cossa, circular letter, 28 Jan. 1866 (ASMi, QG, f. 83), referring to the Public Security Law Marzo 20, 1865.

71 Public security law, 20 Mar. 1865, n. 2248.

72 Reports on Section VIII, 20 Dec. 1883 (Inspector Vincenzo Paoletti), and on Section V, 12 Jan. 1884 (ASMi, QG, f. 106).

73 Paoletti's cited report, 20 Dec. 1883. See also Paoletti, Vincenzo's memoirs Da Brundisio alle Alpi. Reminiscenze di un ispettore di S.P. (Milan, 1891), 56Google Scholar.

74 Lombroso, Sull’incremento del delitto, 135.

75 Hunecke, Classe operaia, 120.

76 Inspector Formenti on Section II, 12 Jun. 1883; report on Section V, 12 Jan. 1884 (ASMi, QG, f. 106).

77 Ibid.

78 By 1882, most male workers living in the cities had the right to vote (Peruta, F. Della, Società e classi popolari nell’Italia dell’Ottocento (Milan, 2005), 190Google Scholar).

79 Reports 1 Jan. 1883, and 1 Jul. 1883 (ASMi, QG, f. 106).

80 Cossa, 21 Feb. 1866 (ASMi, QG, f. 92); Rastelli, 1 Jan. 1882 (ASMi, QG, f. 106).

81 Cf. for example Amour, 1 Jul. 1879; Santagostino, 1 Dec. 1886, and 31 Dec. 1887 (ASMi, QG, f. 106). For a wider view of Italian police organization in the second half of the nineteenth century, see Davis, Conflict and Control, 244–69; S.C. Hughes, Crime, Disorder and the Risorgimento: The Politics of Policing in Bologna (Cambridge, 1994); Tosatti, G., ‘La repressione del dissenso politico tra l’età liberale e il fascismo. L’organizzazione della polizia’, Studi Storici, 1 (1997), 217–55Google Scholar; Bonino, La polizia italiana.

82 See dossier ‘Guardie’, in ASMi, QG, f. 92, particularly report 16 Jan. 1876.

83 Santagostino, 1 Jul. 1883, in ASMi, QG, f. 106.

84 As was the general case in Italy. Cf. Davis, Conflict and Control, 219, 247.

85 These measures were first introduced as exceptional ones and were supposed to prevent crime, but their massive use and the effects they had on the individuals they applied to made them very similar to real punishments. Cf. D. Petrini, ‘Il sistema di prevenzione penale tra controllo sociale ed emarginazione’, in Violante (ed.), Storia d’Italia. Annali 12. La criminalità, 891 ss. (901), and Sbriccoli, ‘Caratteri originari’, 487–9; specifically Fozzi, D., Tra prevenzione e repressione. Il domicilio coatto nell’Italia liberale (Rome, 2011)Google Scholar.

86 Public security law, 20 Mar. 1865, art. 106. About this policy Lacchè, L., La giustizia per i galantuomini: ordine e libertà nell’Italia liberale: il dibattito sul carcere preventivo. 1865–1913 (Milan, 1990), 140–6Google Scholar.

87 Report cited, 20 Dec. 1883.

88 Six-monthly report to the prefect, 5 Jan. 1880, in ASMi, QG, f. 105.

89 Cf. the reports in ASMi, QG, f. 106.

90 Locatelli, 1 Jan. 1866; report 28 Jun. 1874 (ASMi, QG, f. 105); cited report 1 Jan. 1883.

91 Report on Section V, 27 Dec. 1861 (ASMi, QG, f. 105).

92 Cf. the chapter by Valera, Milano sconosciuta, 75, with a portrait of the well-known ‘appuntato’ (policeman) Mazza (‘el scior Dondina’): efficient, but brutal in chasing the city's petty criminals.

93 Giarelli, F., Vent’anni di giornalismo (1868–1888) (Codogno 1896), 226Google Scholar.

94 Il Secolo, issues dated 17 Jan. 1870 and 19 Feb. 1880. Radical ‘Gazzettino rosa’ had already protested in 1870 against police abuses in applying repressive measures not only to marginals, but also to citizens who were being prosecuted only for political reasons (Hunecke, Classe operaia, 365).

95 Giorio, Ricordi di questura, 83. On the same topic, see also Marius, La pubblica sicurezza in Italia, 135, and in recent times, Berselli, ‘Amministrazione’, 177.

96 Giorio, Ricordi di questura, 85. On the negative effects of ammonizione and domicilio coatto, cf. also Lombroso, Sull’incremento del delitto, 64.

97 Report on Section II, 19 Jun. 1883; report on Section III, 20 Jun. 1883; questore's report, 1 Jul. 1883 (ASMi, QG, f. 106).

98 Cited report 20 Dec. 1883; also Paoletti, Da Brundisio alle Alpi, 56 ss. On the Milanese questori and Santagostino in particular, see Giarelli, Vent’anni di giornalismo, 246–52.

99 In fact by the end of the 1880s, the condition of the Milanese police was once again crucial (Davis, Conflict and Control, 267).

100 Giarelli, Vent’anni di giornalismo, 252.

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