Nils Christie

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.

The Role of Punishment in Penal Policy

Limits to Pain

"Outside of Norway, where this little book is regarded as a classic, Christie is primarily known for his work on crime, prisons and social deviance. His arguments here are similarly critical of mainstream sociological theory and political discourse. Christie knew and admired Ivan Illich whose book Deschooling Society retains a prominent place in the educational literature. But as Judith Suissa points out in her essay, Christie is not arguing against the existence of schools, but rather that we need to think carefully about why they exist, what purpose they serve, and who should have a voice in how they are constituted and run. The view of schools presented in Christie's short text has more in common with the American pragmatist John Dewey, who saw schools as "a genuine form of active community life, instead of a place set apart in which to learn lessons." While Christie's work remains an artifact of its place and time, his vision of a school as a expression of direct and local democratic will should interest students and scholars of de-schooling, unschooling, Dewian and progressive educational theory, and critical pedagogy"--

A Study in the Sociology of Schools

If Schools Didn't Exist

Crime Control As Industry, translated into many languages, is a modern classic of criminology and sociology. Nils Christie, one of the leading criminologists of his era, argues that crime control, rather than crime itself is the real danger for our future. Prison populations, especially in Russia and America, have grown at an increasingly rapid rate and show no signs of slowing. Christie argues that this vast and growing population is the equivalent of a modern gulag, run by a rapacious industry, both public and private, with vested interests in incarceration. Pain and confinement are products, like any other, with a potentially limitless supply of resources. Widely hailed as a classic account of crime and restorative justice Crime Control As Industry's prophetic insights and proposed solutions are essential reading for anyone interested in crime and the global penal system. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by David Garland.

Towards Gulags, Western Style

Crime Control As Industry

A Suitable Amount of Crime looks at the great variations between countries over what are considered 'unwanted acts', how many are constructed as criminal and how many are punished.

A Suitable Amount of Crime

"Uno de los desafíos de la criminología es analizar las condiciones sociales que generan que una acción indeseada tenga un sentido en particular. Realizando esta tarea, la criminología debería ser capaz de aconsejar cómo encontrar, preservar y nutrir las condiciones sociales que funcionan contra la tendencia de catalogar tantas acciones indeseadas como delitos en búsqueda de una sanción punitiva. De tal modo podremos encontrar el camino para formas alternativas de percepción y modos alternativos de control. Desplegando esta tarea, la criminología puede cumplir un importante rol en defensa de la sociedad civil". Nils Christie.

Ensayos selectos

Delito y vida

en sosiologisk undersøkelse av norske fangevoktere i "serberleirene" i Nord-Norge i 1942-43

Fangevoktere i konsentrasjonsleire

Gwénola Ricordeau

Louk Hulsman

Penser l'abolitionnisme pénal

Crimes & Peines

A classic in the philosophy of education, considering the fundamental purpose and function of schools, translated into English for the first time. This classic 1971 work on the fundamental purpose and function of schools belongs on the same shelf as other landmark works of the era, including Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society, Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and John Holt's How Children Fail. Nils Christie's If School Didn't Exist, translated into English for the first time, departs from these works by not considering schooling (and deschooling) as much as schools and their specific community and social contexts. Christie argues that schools should be proving grounds for how to live together in society rather than assembly lines producing future citizens and employees.

Nils Christie

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