Il sistema legale (penale) e i suoi rischi. Riflessioni sui processi di etichettamento sociale e di criminalizzazione, per una forma di “garantismo allargato” e positivo.

In recent years, Italy has been confronted with the hypertrophy of the penal system, a trend closely linked to the contemporary neoliberal and neo securitarian period, itself rooted in 19th-century traditions. While these aspects highlight the inability of the legal system and, more specifically, the penal subsystem to address and resolve the qualitatively and quantitatively changing problems posed by a society in rapid and continuous development, they simultaneously point to more articulated and complex issues. These concern the uncertain nature of the legal and penal systems, the risks they incur when attention is focused on the interaction between law and the organizational complexes or action systems related to it, and the selective legal classification carried out by social actors who enact, interpret, and apply norms based on the purposes and interests they profess and pursue. While these risks cannot be entirely eliminated, they can be reduced through recourse to a minimal criminal law inspired by forms of “broadened” and “positive” guaranteeism.