“There is no glory in prevention” – but Konrad Curze and his Night Lords beg to differ. Their ruthless understanding of justice and judgement embodies all of the principles of the negative general prevention: hard, cruel and swift punishment, even for small crimes, to ensure the obedience of his subjects and to prevent further criminal acts. While it seems a promising idea at first glance and has been an idea that criminal law had followed for centuries, the negative general prevention is heavily criticised to this day.
Modern crime prevention follows different approaches, but nonetheless the question how successful Curzes methods really could be still stands and is oftentimes discussed among Warhammer 40k fans. This lecture is an approach to showing what negative general prevention means, why it was and is so popular in the dark grim future and if the lasting success that Konrad Curze and his Night Lords dreamed of really could have been achieved – or if a revision of Curzes Law would have been inevitable.
Author bio
Julia Reichenbacher is the head of the Büro für Kommunale Prävention in Augsburg and a member of the German YouTube channel 1000 für den Imperator. She studied law and got her second state examination in 2020. In between she worked as a research associate at the Endowed Chair for Crime Prevention and Risk Management in Tübingen and after finishing her legal clerkship she worked for the police of Baden-Württemberg.
