Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

A Penological Examination of Bozorg Alavi’s Prison Papers

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Behzad Razavi Fard 1
Ali Molabeigi 2
1 Associate Professor, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, Allameh Tabatabai University, Tehran, Iran
2 PhD student in criminal law and criminology, faculty of law and political science, Allameh Tabatabai University, Tehran, Iran
10.22034/jclc.2024.451278.1992
Abstract
Interdisciplinary studies offer a critical framework for synthesizing knowledge across disciplinary boundaries, enriching scholarly discourse and methodological innovation. The intersection of literature and penology is particularly fertile ground, as literary narratives often encode subversive critiques of penal systems, while penology provides the theoretical lens to decode them. Bozorg Alavi's Prison Papers represents a seminal text for such analysis, exposing the carceral logics of the first Pahlavi regime through its unflinching portrayal of prison society. Alavi’s narrative interrogates both the structural violence of prison administration and the lived experience of incarceration, revealing their dialectical relationship. The primary research question concerns how Alavi’s Prison Papers articulates a critique of Pahlavi-era penology, particularly its reliance on retributive justice, and what socio-legal ramifications this critique exposes. A hermeneutic content analysis of the text demonstrates that first Pahlavi penal policy was fundamentally retributive, prioritizing deterrence and incapacitation over rehabilitative or restorative principles. Consequently, prison administrators systematically neglected core penological tenets: prisoner individualization, classification, and the safeguarding of fundamental rights, particularly for political detainees. This retributive orientation produced criminogenic effects: prisonization, the cultivation of antisocial norms, and the institutionalized erosion of rehabilitative potential - outcomes that Alavi meticulously documents as systemic failures.
 
Keywords
Prison Papers
Content Analysis
Prison Administration Methods
Retributive Penology
Negative Consequences of Imprisonment
First Pahlavi Era
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Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
Volume 13, Issue 25
August 2025
Pages 135-170