Roberto Bergalli (1936-2020)

Roberto Bergalli: The Creation of a School of Critical Criminology once in  Exile

Bergalli was born on January 23rd, 1936, in Buenos  Aires. While studying Law, he came into close contact  with the well-known Spanish Republican jurist Luis  Jiménez de Asúa (who was in exile in Argentina). He  finished his degree in 1963, and presented his first  research papers, which already went beyond the  limits of penal sciences, in the Centro de Estudios  José Ingenieros and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura.  Between 1966 and 1970, he continued his academic  studies in Great Britain and Italy, where he lived  through, and personally experienced, the important  cultural events and movements of the time, such as  the 1968 student uprisings and occupation of  universities. Once he had returned to Argentina, he  defended his doctoral thesis (1971). He experienced  the eventful years after the end of the dictatorship,  instigating, from his position in the judiciary, the  closure of the Camarón (a special court that had been  set up some time before for the prosecution and  imprisonment of political dissidents).  

Between 1973 and 1975, thanks to a German grant – Stipendium Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung -he  came into contact with prominent professors such as  Hilde Kaufmann in Germany, Giuliano Vassalli in Italy  and Marino Barbero Santos in Spain. Once he was  back in Argentina, he was kidnapped from his house  by a military command a month after the coup d’état  by the Military Junta of Videla, Massera and Agosti on  March 24th 1976. For over a year, he was deprived of  his freedom. He endured terrifying and horrendous  conditions, until he was liberated in April 1977 as the  result of a widespread international campaign for his  release. Once freed, Bergalli returned to Germany  together with his family thanks to, once again, the  support of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung. He  continued his research and work at the  Kriminologische Forschungsstelle, at the University of  Köln, until 1979.

After preparing a second doctoral thesis (15-VI-1978)  at the University of Salamanca in Spain, with Enrique  Gimbernat as his advisor, and defending it before a  doctoral panel presided by Marino Barbero Santos, he  worked as a professor at the Institute of Criminology  at the University of Barcelona, where he settled in  1980. Together with Bustos and Miralles, he  published the book El pensamiento criminológico. Un  análisis crítico and he edited, also with Bustos, the  journal Poder y Control. Revista hispanolatinoamericana de disciplinas sobre el control social.  From that moment on, he dedicated his time to  disseminating, throughout Spain, Europe and Latin  America, the work of Baratta, Jock Young, Pavarini,  Melossi, Hulsman, Scheerer, Zaffaroni, all of whom  were critical researchers of the penal system. With  them, from 1984, he promoted the Common Study  Programme on Criminal Justice and Critical  Criminology in universities in Spain, Italy, Holland,  Germany, Greece, Belgium and Great Britain.  Between 1993 and 1995, he was the Scientific Director of the International Institute for the Sociology  of Law in Oñati (Euskadi/Basque Country). After returning to the University of Barcelona, he was  involved with us in the creation of The Observatory of  the Penal System and Human Rights (OSPDH),  presiding over its International Committee.

Roberto Bergalli was professor and mentor to generations of students and researchers interested in critical thinking and the sociology of law in Catalonia,  Spain, and Latin America. We learnt from him that it is not possible to understand Law without taking into account and keeping in mind the economic, cultural  and political transformations in our society,a society in  which Law acts as a punitive power. He stressed that we must not forget the role Law has as a key player in  the dominance of capital and all the injustices that the  latter causes. But Bergalli was also a great friend and colleague to so many of us. His intellectual eminence,  his work and books, his immeasurable determination,  his ethical and moral example, and his quest for  justice, have laid the foundations of an authentic  School of thought which already forms part of us and which has spread across “his two souls” (Latin  America and Europe), and which we hope to continue  disseminate and sustain.  

Héctor Silveira & Iñaki Rivera Beiras


(First published in RCSL Newsletter 2020(2), p. 6)