Una sensata cantidad de delito

by Nils Christie

Los actos deplorables existen, pero, ¿existe el delito? Si así fuera, ¿ cuánto delito sería suficiente o demasiado? El delito no es un concepto estático o fijo, y cuáles acciones son consideradas delictivas varían históricamente y de una sociedad a otra. Cualquier acción podría ser definida como delictiva, con lo cual el delito es teóricamente un recurso inagotable. Esta obra analiza las inmensas diferencias entre los países respecto de lo que se consideran "acciones indeseables", cómo se definen tales acciones como delictivas y cuántas de ellas son castigadas. Describe las diferencias entre la Europa oriental y occidental, como también entre los EE.UU. y el resto del mundo. El autor denuncia las cifras de población carcelaria es Estados punitivos como una amenaza a los valores humanos y a las formas de la sociedad civil, y propone que académicos e investigadores tienen la obligación moral de denunciar que existen alternativas. Nils Christie es un criminólogo reconocido mundialmente, cuyos trabajos han sido publicados en un gran número de idiomas. Esta obra trae consigo todos los años de experiencia que el autor ha dedicado al estudio del delito y de la justicia penal. Está escrita con un estilo fácilmente accesible y atrapante, e invocará a todos aquellos interesados en comprender los problemas contemporáneos del delito y el castigo.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Nils Christie was a Norwegian criminologist known for his criticism of penal incarceration and drug prohibition. Christie was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. He was also the president of the Scandinavian Council for Criminology and the director of the Institute for Criminology and Penal Law in Norway. Christie wrote about the massacre of prisoners from Yugoslavia in Norwegian concentration camps during WWII.

Reviews

[Jim v H · Rating 4 out of 5]

De wereld is een Nils Christie fan rijker

[Griffin R · Rating 4 out of 5]

Painfully ignorant regarding abolition on a practical and theoretical level, very possibly willfully so, but the rest is pretty good.

[Sarah Jane Wood · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to do a critical analysis of this work from my Criminology course this quarter. I was not particularly excited about reading this book, but I ended up getting a lot out of it. Christie is not a native English speaker, so his writing is a little awkward at times. I ended up adjusting to his word choice and sentence structure after a couple of chapters though.

Christie approaches the concept of "crime" from an interesting point of view: crime doesn't really exist. He claims, instead, that only acts exist. Crime has no true or constant definition. Thus, it cannot be accurately measured, nor can different measurements of crime be meaningfully compared.

In the end, Christie insists that peacemaking must be given at least as much emphasis as the control of acts through punishment. As a global community, we must all work toward this end. He explains how the failure to do so will impact us all negatively.

I didn't expect to be interested in this piece of work, but I was ultimately very impressed. It's a short read, certainly worth picking up.

[Nadia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crime is a fluid concept, a social construct. The acts that could be construed as criminal are unlimited and crime is therefore in ‘endless supply’ (Christie, 2004).

[Aleksandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Christie sets out to illustrate the fluidity of crime and inefficacy of the modern penal system. Unfortunately, the book mostly consists of poorly written ramblings.