Law and Incapacitation

Compulsory Health Treatment (TSO) for mental illness constitutes the primary form of “coercive care” in Italy, as recently reaffirmed by the Constitutional Court (judgment no. 22/2022). Drawing on the work of the Observatory on TSOs in the City of Turin, this study analyzes over 1,000 case files relating to TSO procedures carried out between 2017 and 2023, including validation orders issued by both the mayor and the guardianship judge. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with healthcare professionals and local police officers involved in the procedures. The findings reveal a high degree of standardization within the administrative-judicial process which, despite being formally grounded in robust legal safeguards, operates in practice as a form of routinized justice characterized by medical dominance over other institutional actors. The analysis further suggests that the TSO is increasingly embedded in a paradigm marked by a renewed emphasis on practices of social control and can be interpreted as a dispositif of incapacitation.