The lost paradise. Foreigners condemned for organized crime in prisons of Spain.

Abstract

Based on data from an empirical research conducted by the IAIC, Cadiz, with foreigners in Spanish prisons convicted of organized crime, we can conclude that the category “foreigner-criminal-organized crime”, which works in the collective imagination by associating certain subjects/groups and events (terrorists, drug traffickers) with greater danger to society and, therefore, legitimizing extraordinary criminal and societal control measures, does not correspond with reality of prisons. Furthermore, racketeering convictions are rare and almost all concentrated in the Moroccan community, despite of being this collective minimally represented in police operations against organized crime. In addition, this phenomenon burden the prison intervention and empirically demonstrates the selective application of criminal law, in this case, by the nationality factor.