Peter Scharff Smith

Peter Scharff Smith is Professor in the Sociology of Law at the University in Oslo, Norway. He has studied history and social science, holds a PhD from the University of Copenhagen and has also done research at the University of Cambridge and at the Danish Institute of Human Rights. Peter has undertaken several studies on the families and children of prisoners and has published books and articles within this field. He has also worked extensively with practical prison reform in this area together with, among others, Scandinavian prisoner family NGO’s and the Danish prison and probation service. Peter has published books and articles in Danish, English and German on prisons, punishment and human rights, including works on prison history, prisoner’s children and the use and effects of solitary confinement in prisons. He has also published books and articles on the history of the Waffen-SS and the Nazi war of extermination at the Eastern Front. He is the author or co-author of nine monographs and co-editor of several edited collections. Peter has for example authored When the Innocent are Punished: The Children of Imprison Parents (Palgrave, 2014). His latest books in English are Jules Lobel and Peter Scharff Smith (eds.): Solitary Confinement: Effects, Practices, and Pathways toward Reform Oxford University Press 2020, and Rachel Condry and Peter Scharff Smith (eds.): Prisons, Punishment, and the Family: Towards a New Sociology of Punishment? Oxford University Press 2018.