Crime is a much neglected area of national policy in Zambia. Yet it tends to affect the individual directly, sometimes in a dramatic way, as a victim or an offender, and, because it is costly to the state, as a tax-payer as well. This thesis hopes to make a contribution towards arousing public and government interest and concern about crime, particularly the treatment of offenders, and suggests new directions of policy towards reform. In view of the wide gulf between the technological development of Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, the unimpeded domination of Europe over Africa at the turn of the nineteenth century in the form of colonialism was unavoidable. With colonialism came foreign civilisations and cultures, including penal systems. Post-independence writing on legal and other disciplines is characterised by specific references to, or implicit acknowledgements of, themes of conflict and dysfunction between the foreign European influences and indigenous cultures. This thesis focuses on the consequences of the imposition of a penal system from a highly industrialised society (Great Britain) on the justice system of a technologically underdeveloped society (Zambia).