The Stench of Canteen Culture: Cop Culture and the Case of Federico Aldrovandi.

• Date: 22 March 2021
• Author: Scalia, Vincenzo
• Published date: 22 March 2021
• Author: Scalia, Vincenzo

THIS ARTICLE PRESENTS AN ANALYSIS OF ABUSES COMMITTED BY THE Italian police over recent decades, focusing in particular on the case of Federico Aldrovandi, a teenager from Ferrara whose treatment at the hands of the police when he was stopped on his way home from a night out on September 25, 2005, led to his death.

The Aldrovandi case marked a watershed in public perception of police abuse, coming not long after the events of the 2001 G8 protests in Genoa, which had paved the way in terms of bringing the issue into the public eye. Thanks to the work of civil society actors, in particular organizations like Antigone, A Buon Diritto, and Abusi in Divisa, (1) more and more cases of police violations have been brought to light. Of these, 3 8 cases are well known, though there have been other cases that were never reported or were settled in private as the victim chose to remain anonymous. In all cases, the victims and their families have been supported by a network of legal professionals and activists, as well as at least a part of broader public opinion. The cases have sparked a movement aimed at bringing justice in each specific case but also at raising the level of awareness in society and within the police so that similar abuses can be prevented in the future.

Nevertheless, the question of how to move forward remains open, in terms of both preventing the proliferation of abuse and bringing perpetrators of past abuses to justice via legal means. This article will take the Aldrovandi case as a starting point for an analysis that establishes a nexus between internal police culture and the proliferation of abuse. Using the work of Robert Reiner (1985), the article will look at four dimensions of police culture, as identified by Reiner: isolation, cynicism, the policing mission, and political conservatism. These characteristics are formed in an informal context involving elaboration, negotiation, and a familiarization of police practices, something that P.A.J. Waddington (1999), though from a critical perspective, calls "canteen culture," i.e., a culture existing outside of the contexts regulated by institutional rules and obligations.

Police training and submission to the law and to the institutions of the constitutional state are secondary to police practices, representations, and perceptions, elaborated through the daily interactions between colleagues. What follows from this is a discrepancy between the principles that should direct all police action, i.e., the principles of the rule of law, and a series of practices and representations. The latter, though carried out in the name of law and order, ultimately result in violations of citizens' rights, the concrete outcome of which can be physical or verbal abuse or even, as in the Aldrovandi case, homicide. This discrepancy will be brought to light following an analysis of the main theories relating to police culture. It will then itself be analyzed. This analysis will in turn demonstrate how actions taken by the police in the critical moment represent the concrete manifestation of the production, through canteen culture and police powers of discretion, of an interpretation of events specific to the police. The conclusion will focus on an evaluation of possible correctives, such as the creation of independent commissions or the obligation for officers to display their officer number. The analytical approach used by Reiner (1985) mainly refers to British police. I deem it as a valid tool to analyze Italian police culture because, firstly, it relates to similar problems affecting an important actor of the judicial and penal system. Culture, brutality, and prejudices by police are common aspects across different contexts. The use of Reiner's categories can provide a comparative approach to police culture. Secondly, police studies in Italy have only begun to develop in recent years. The analytical apparatus proposed by Reiner can become one of the tools that scholars who study both the culture and practices of Italian police can use.

Material relating to the case of Federico Aldrovandi has been obtained thanks to the help of lawyers Fabio Anselmo and Alessandra Pisa, to whom much gratitude is owed. The documentation consists of statements given by police agents, witness statements presented during court, and a documentary created by journalist Filippo Vendemmiati (2010), E' stato morto un ragazzo. It includes recordings of the phone calls made between the police units involved and central command, as well as various interviews and other material relating to the trial.

Methodology

This article is the product of content analysis (Roberts 1997). The analysis of the statements of police officers involved both in the beating and the eventual death of Federico Aldrovandi is the core of this article. I will focus on the declarations they made before the court, as well as what they said to each other during work via phone, so as to show how their approach to the case remains quite the same both privately and publicly, though they are more formal when making their statements before the court. PI is the most cited police officer. This is because his interrogation was longer than that of his other colleagues, because it was this officer who started the intervention and directed it, and also oriented the approach of his other colleagues. Moreover, his declarations are more explicit than that of his colleagues.

Debates on Police Culture

Italian academia has been somewhat slow to develop a police studies discipline and to approach the issue of police culture in particular. The greater reluctance of the Italian police to work with scholars is exacerbated by restrictive legal measures. This has stunted the development of a relevant sociological or criminological field able to engender greater understanding and, more importantly, to elaborate corrective policy. The main studies relating to the police that exist in the Italian literature are consequently focused on bureaucratic or procedural aspects (Canosa 1976), overlooking, as such, aspects relating to police knowledge and practices. The analysis of these latter aspects would need to be internal, as it requires looking at the significance police attach to their practices and at the collective identity that they develop in relation to their profession. Other more recent works (Palidda 2000) are framed within the social control perspective, yet such works still have little to say on police culture. The most important work on police culture, from which this article takes its theoretical basis, is Robert Reiner's (1985) The Politics of the Police. Reiner's analysis takes as its starting point the discretionary powers that guide police work, necessary both because the nature of police work requires that specific situations be evaluated on the spot, and because of the gap between law and police forces' values. Following the analysis of this particular nature of police work, Reiner goes on to identify four different aspects of police culture. The first of these is a sense of mission (ibid., Ill), i.e., a justification of police practices that understands their function as being to protect both the victims of crime and a specific way of life more broadly, seen as being under threat from individuals or social groups that are politically, socially, and culturally other. This vision would seem to coincide with the testimony given by a witness during one of the hearings of the Aldrovandi trial:

The police must also provide protection from them.... I mean that the police carry out their duties throughout the night ... sometimes they pay for it with their lives ... Sometimes, unfortunately, there are victims. (2) This request for law and order on the part of some sections of the public is read by the police as a justification for the machismo that sometimes characterizes their operations, which will be analyzed in greater depth further on. This mission then forms the basis of the second aspect, cynicism, the term used to describe the police's detached attitude toward the use of violence against actors seen as representing a threat to public order, even where the consequences are tragic. This cynicism requires the police to make assumptions, classifications, and discriminations concerning events and people based on a readiness to suspect. Cynicism encourages the elaboration and circulation of stereotypes that guide the police in different ways according to the codification of the work being carried out (Reiner 1985, 114-15). In the case of Aldrovandi, for example, one of the agents involved in the arrest (quoted in Vendemmiati 2010, 64 min.) made the following comment to a colleague when Aldrovandi was asked to state his name: "as if that's his real name."

These first two elements give rise to informal professional rules and practices, as well as "presentation rules" (Reiner 1985,105): the ways in which the police impart meaning to their actions when relating to the external world. All of this comes together to form the peculiar knowledge, practices, and culture of the police. The dimension of isolation/solidarity, which distinguishes law enforcement agencies from the rest of society and activates mechanisms of internal solidarity aimed at emphasizing and protecting their specificity, is thus generated. It is this isolation that would explain the statements made by one of the agents involved in the Aldrovandi case, agent S, who seeks to justify her actions by calling attention to the length of her career. (3) Agent S takes for granted that her lengthy service, with the consequent internalization of practices and knowledges, is a valid justification in a criminal court. Her attitude reveals a confusion between the police's esprit de corps and the general interest that...