The police and the urban ‘dangerous classes’: the culture and practice of public law and order in Milan after national unity

The article deals with the way the police as an institution dealt with the changes the city of Milan underwent in the second half of Nineteenth Century, both in social organization, mentality and politics. The topic is that of the correspondence between urban crisis and police crisis. The Italian case was marked by a double crisis: the population growth that caused stronger and wider mobility and consequently social unrest, and the political challenge brought about by the newly started national State building process. The police had to manage local situations overcoming its own biases without receiving support from Parliament and Government, so basically applying repressive measurers, which made its reputation worse and its action even more difficult.