This edited volume is the first book to comprehensively explore the complex structures and history of Italian police institutions and police professional knowledge since 1946, spanning from the end of World War II and the fall of fascism through the watershed 2001 conflicts in Genoa and up to the present.

History, sociology, and criminology are all deployed to examine how the Italian State Police build the categories and the conceptual tools through which they are able to give sense to the world and to frame the social groups with which they interact. As empirical access to Italian police institutions is frequently hindered by secrecy, formal restrictions, and limited archives, the authors use a “mirror-based” methodology grounded in sources such as manuals and guidelines, professional journals, speeches and ceremonies, press and media materials, and police fiction. Together, these reveal a story of (incomplete) democratization and demilitarization, changing approaches to public order and social control, and transformations in gender and class belongings both inside and outside of police institutions in a country where police transparency has not always been the norm.

This book will be a necessary reference for scholars of police studies and of Italy, including historians, sociologists, criminologists, and cultural scholars.

Michele Di Giorgio is an independent scholar. He was a postdoctoral researcher in contemporary history at the University of Bari and held research positions at the Universities of Siena and Pisa. His research focuses on police and policing in contemporary Italy, including forensic policing, identification, and surveillance. His books include Per una polizia nuova: Il movimento per la riforma della Pubblica Sicurezza (1969–1981) (2019) and Il braccio armato del potere (2024).

Enrico Gargiulo is Professor of Sociology at the University of Turin. His research focuses on citizenship and its transformations, the politics and policies of migrants’ integration, social policy, police and policing, with specific attention to the management of public order and crowds, urban security, identification, and recognition. His books include Invisible Borders: Administrative Barriers and Citizenship in the Italian Municipalities (2021) and Protocols as a Tool for Government (2023).

Molly Tambor is Professor of History at Long Island University Post. A former Rome Prize winner and Fulbright selection committee member for Italy, she chaired the Columbia University seminar on Modern Italian Studies from 2022 to 2025 and is currently Vice President of the Society for Italian Historical Studies. Her books include The Lost Wave: Women and Democracy in Postwar Italy and the translation of The United States and Fascist Italy: The Rise of American Finance in Europe.