I started writing this text in Barcelona and finished it in Bogotá. Both cities have a special meaning in the route that this text goes through, not examining Massimo Pavarini’s work (many people are doing this), but to transmitting what my personal memory evokes as the wonderful adventure of meeting him and enjoying his extreme generosity, his many teachings, and his friendship.

I met Massimo in Barcelona, back in 1985, when Roberto Bergalli used to invite him and Alessandro Baratta, and they planned to start the Common Study Programme on Criminal Justice and Critical Criminology, a common program between different universities where I could participate while completing my doctoral studies. In Barcelona, next to Roberto, a group of young people gave their first academic steps, learned some Italian by translating Massimo and Sandro, and started to read some “classical” documents on Critical Criminology that were very little known in Barcelona. It was in that Common Study Programme, especially in its famous and amusing “common sessions” (in Ghent, London or Saarbrücken), where we witnessed the debates between Dutch and Nordic abolitionists, guarantee-based discourses, Italian or Latin American supporters of a minimum criminal law, and British left realists. Louk Hulsman, Jock Young, John Lea, Patrick Hebberecht, alongside Roberto Bergalli, Juan Bustos, Sandro Baratta and Massimo among others, were the promoters.