This work examines the relationship between the theologies of atonement and penal strategies. Christian theology was potent in Western society until the 19th century, and the so-called satisfaction theory of the atonement interacted and reacted with penal practice. Drawing on the work of Norbert Elias and David Garland, the author argues that atonement theology created a structure of affect which favoured retributive policies. He ranges freely between Old Testament texts, St Anselm, and 18th and 19th-century British social history, to show the integral connection between sin and crime, the legal and the moral. But the question arises whether the preaching of the cross not only desensitized us to judicial violence but even lent it sanction. The last two chapters review theory and practice in the 20th century, and Timothy Gorringe makes proposals for both theology and criminal and societal violence.
