John Pratt is Professor of Criminology at the Institute of Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington. He has published extensively on the history and sociology of punishment, including Punishment in a Perfect Society (1992), Governing the Dangerous (1997), Dangerous Offenders: Punishment and Social Order (2000, joint editor), Punishment and Civilization (2002), Crime, Truth and Justice (2003, joint editor) and The New Punitiveness (2005, co-editor).