Beyond criminalization: Immigration and the challenges for criminology

This paper discusses the increasing importance of administrative punishment in the penal field, using the judicialization of immigration conflicts in Canada as an example. Based on documentary analysis and the results of fieldwork conducted at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada between 2007 and 2009, I will present some characteristics of the legal translation of conflicts in immigration law and the forms of punishment involved. I will argue that these differ substantially from those in criminal law. My ultimate goal is to question the idea of criminalization of immigration as a category capable of nuancing the complexity of administrative forms of social response. Instead, I suggest that we should understand the forms of punishment in administrative law as they are (police measures and administrative sanctions), rethinking their role in the penal field to better understand how these forms of penalisation may even supplement or superimpose traditional criminalisation processes.