The management of madness has always been a matter of spaces. The most extreme of these places - the places that in the last quarter of XIX century were created in Italy as Judicial Psychiatric Hospitals - have recently seen an ambiguous attempt of being closed down. The real possibilities of closing these Hospitals and the various steps of the complex legislation on this issue are described and discussed. Any modification of these places at the border of our "norma"" identity implies a redefinition of social meaning, of the boundaries of human condition and of the hierarchical orders. The destiny of these marginal places, then, preserves the codes of social order and of its future.
Keywords: Judicial Psychiatric Hospitals, closing of Judicial Psychiatric Hospitals, social order, social dangerousness, infamy