Abstract

The paper presents some research hypotheses on the Italian coercive prevention apparatus through the sociological qualitative analysis of a sample of special surveillance orders, providing the theoretical keys to analyse that apparatus and the specific measures taken in consideration. This is a discretely theoretically deepened field of research, but one that proves, at least in Italy, to be little accessible to empirical socio-legal research. The aim is to hypothesize the functions and potential effects of this institutional intervention. The reflection leads to bring back to the center concepts and categories that only seemingly belong to the past and indeed innervate control practices, especially preventive ones. I refer to the policies of social defense and social alarm, aimed at the continuous identification between deviance and threat, disorder and social danger