A machine without an engine: why deportation would hardly find its place in the Italian judicial system

In the last decades, many Western countries have embraced an exclusionary stance towards non-members by increasingly relying on deportation. An important target of ‘crimmigration’ practices is represented by convicted foreign nationals, who are subject to deportation after serving their sentence. In Italy, trial judges can issue a deportation order towards convicted foreign nationals considered socially dangerous. This article examines whether and how deportation has found its space in judicial settings. Drawing on data collected in the court of Turin, this article sheds light on how structural and cultural traits of the Italian judicial system make deportation ‘a machine without an engine’.