Crime Control As Industry ─ Towards Gulags, Western Style

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 vast 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.

Nils Christie (1928 –2015)[1] was a Norwegian sociologist and criminologist. He was a professor of criminology at the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo from 1966. He received an honorary degree at the University of Copenhagen. Christie is well known for his long standing criticism of drug prohibition, industrial society, and prisons. He was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.