Kriminologisches Journal

Crimmigration and Pre-Crime in German Law

Connecting the International Debate to the German National (Legal) Context

Zusammenfassung

The point of departure for current inter- and transdisciplinary debates on “crimmigration” is a critical legal perspective that transcends disciplinary boundaries within the law and dares to look at criminal law and migration law as a unified whole. The article will focus on how these areas of law interact with each other to result in infringements of the procedural rights of the foreign nationals concerned. While the article acknowledges the importance of international approaches to border criminologies derived from the crimmigration debate, it calls for the relevance of legal practice and legitimizing normative programs in crimmigration law not to be overlooked. This applies especially in the national context of Germany, where this perspective is still largely absent. Examples of such an analysis that takes the law seriously as a powerful (discursive) practice are provided.