Limits to Pain: The Role of Punishment in Penal Policy

by Nils Christie, Howard Zehr (Foreword)

Inflicting pain is a serious matter, often at variance with cherished values such as kindness and forgiveness. Attempts might therefore be made to hide the basic character of the activity, or to give various "scientific" reasons for inflicting pain. Such attempts are systematically described in this book, and related to social conditions. None of these attempts to cope with pain seem to be quite satisfactory. It is as if societies in their struggle with penal theories oscillate between attempts to solve an insoluble dilemma. Punishment is used less in some systems than in others. On the basis of examples from systems where pain is rarely inflicted, some general conditions for a low level of pain infliction are formulated. The standpoint is that if pain is to be applied, this should be done without a manipulative purpose and in a social form resembling that which is normal when people are in deep sorrow. Most of the material is from Scandinavia, but the book draws extensively on the crime control debate in the United Kingdom and USA.

Genres: Nonfiction, Theory, Law

122 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

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

[Carolina · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Este livro não é um livro sobre revolução, é relativo à reforma. Questões essenciais são se os tribunais podem ser mais participativos, ou se os conselhos para lidar com o conflito podem ser adicionados à estrutura atual" (p. 142).
O livro discute a política criminal em um contexto muito diferente do Brasil. Talvez o que possamos aproveitar mais seja o conceito de dor no sistema de justiça criminal. Vale a pena ler, pois é referência nos estudos de Política Criminal do século XX.

[Victoria Law]

Perhaps it's the translation, but I had a hard time following many of Christie's chapters. At times, it reads like a sociological text; at others, I was just left scratching my head.

As far back as 1981 (and in Norway, which was already seguewaying into a more humane prison system), Christie warns, "Recent experiences with 'alternatives to prison' indicate that they easily turn into 'additions to prison.'"

[Nadia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for all professionals working in the criminal justice field.

[Larissa Naback · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A literatura está cheia de heróis tão grandes que a dor se torna pequena, ou covardes tão pequenos que quase tudo se torna dor.”

[Giovanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

eu tatuaria esse livro, mto foda, divisor de aguas na minha vida e na forma q encaro o mundo