Is Professor of Criminology in the Faculty of Law of the University of Bologna.

Earlier on, he had spent many years at the University of California (Santa Barbara and Davis).

He has a law degree from the University of Bologna and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

His best known publications are The Prison and the Factory (co-authored with Massimo Pavarini), The State of Social Control: A Sociological Study of Concepts of State and Social Control in the Making of Democracy, and just appeared, Stato, devianza, controllo sociale: Teorie criminologiche e società tra Europa e Stati Uniti.

During the years he has been carrying on an interest in the field of the sociology of punishment.

More recently, after his return to Europe in the mid-1990s, he has been investigating the question of migrants’ criminalization in the context of the construction of a European Union.