Mussolini’s policemen

Policemen and ‘Women of Ill Repute’: A Study of Male Sexual Attitudes and Behaviour in Fascist Italy

“…The extent to which the police fully identified with fascist theories about sexuality in the regulation of their own ranks and in their control over society at large is equally questionable, given fascism's rather haphazard penetration of the policing hierarchy. 59 On account of their seniority, as the case of Giuseppe Cocchia illustrates, the inspectors entrusted with the job of monitoring and regulating the police were usually non-political career figures who were trained and culturally formed during the Liberal period. Nevertheless, it is likely that fascist ideas on female behaviour, prostitution and homosexuality appealed to the prejudices of police officers and officials.…”

“…27 Under fascism, this partly reflected a lack of resources to improve the quality of the regular police forces, as a result of which transfers -as opposed to recruitment of higher-quality personnel -were often the only possible solution for cases of indiscipline. 28 Many of the relationships emerging in the available documentation appear to be founded on sex obtained by force, indicating a notable element of aggressiveness and highhandedness on the part of the policemen concerned. Documentation for both the Liberal and fascist periods reveals that police personnel on occasion faced accusations of indecent acts (atti osceni) and rape (violenza carnale); the latter juridical term was also used to define sexual relations with girls under the age of consent, 29 cases of which emerge too, though any legal proceedings which ensued tended to end in acquittal, possibly reflecting a broader scenario in which treatment for rape was generally lenient, particularly under the fascist dictatorship.…”

The Work of Cesare Lombroso and its Reception: Further Contexts and Perspectives

“…He questions how far, beyond the polizia scientifica, police officers were driven by Lombrosian theories, rather than baser prejudices, in their identification and treatment of "criminals" and "deviants". 11 Emilia Musumeci's contribution to this issue, "Against the Rising Tide of Crime: Cesare Lombroso and Control of the 'Dangerous Classes' in Italy, 1861-1940", adds to our understanding of the legacy of Lombroso's criminal anthropology in the field of scientific policing in Italy. She examines the techniques and methods employed by police departments from the end of the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century to identify and detect criminals and suspects, illustrating how the Italian criminal identification system was inspired by Lombroso's "discovery" of both the biological characteristics of criminals and their external manifestations, as evident in criminal language and tattoos.…”

Lombroso: The Myth,The History

“…The police force of the Republic used such men and their fascist methods to repress ethnic minorities, homosexuality and prostitution, while the police scientific school that had taught public security cadres the principles of Lombroso's criminal anthropology throughout the fascist period was still in operation. 59 In the universities, academics who had worked during the dictatorship, often giving it open support, now held professorships: one of these was Benigno Di Tullio, a pupil of Ottolenghi who in 1931 had published a widely used handbook based on the congenital character theory of the habitual criminal and on the principle of eugenics. He founded the Italian Society of Criminology in 1957 and taught forensic psychopathology at the Sapienza University of Rome until his death in 1978.…”