From smuggled migrants to ‘alleged smugglers’: Empirical evidence and policy perspectives on the criminalization of people on the move in Italy

Abstract Since 2014, numerous people on the move have been accused of migrant smuggling in Italian courts for steering makeshift vessels or for assisting in navigation across the Mediterranean Sea. This is the case regardless of the fact that such behaviour was the result of coercion or threats. In this contribution, drawing upon extensive empirical research and following a socio‐legal paradigm, I first explore the criminalization of people on the move in relation to migrant smuggling charges in the years following the so‐called 2014–2015 refugee crisis and discuss the impact on their rights. Second, I tackle the issue from a policy perspective, considering three potential EU/national policy reforms and the ways in which they could successfully address an existing policy problem. Such reforms vary in scope, from a damage limitation logic to a fully fledged change of paradigm, and the three can be described as follows: alignment of EU and national frameworks with the United Nations Protocol against migrant smuggling; a more significant differentiation between migrant smuggling and the facilitation of undocumented migration; and an explicit exoneration from criminal liability for people on the move accused of migrant smuggling. This article presents innovative insights, providing on the one hand an up‐to‐date empirical understanding of this form of criminalization of people on the move and, on the other, extensive reflections on the way in which policy reforms could prevent it.