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I read this in the early 70's

  • The ring in question is surgically grafted onto a convicted criminals finger and enables him to be tracked.

  • It triggers intense pain if the conditions of his parole are breached.

Unfortunately, that's all I remember! Can anyone help?

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    I suspect I read the story as well. It was in English, in the moderately near future, American rather than European. The ring reads physical correlates of emotional states, but is not enormously better than a polygraph. At one point the protagonist is interrogated about his feelings for a woman, and the ring does not let him distinguish between the fantasies he would never act on, and the ones he would, making him seem like a threat to her. It also makes it impossible for him to fight even in self defense, and some nasties take advantage of that to beat up those with rings.
    – WhatRoughBeast
    Jun 7, 2014 at 0:42
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    I've read this as well, and it's definitely called The Ring. There's a man who quotes 'Locksley Hall', and a drug that makes people think that part of their body is another part (eg; tell them their ear is their mouth, and they'll try to drink from it)
    – sueelleker
    Jun 7, 2014 at 8:14

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Found it for you!

"The Ring" by Piers Anthony and Robert E. Margroff

The Ring

Amazon offers the following review:

After a youth spent trapped in space exile, Jeff Font returned to Earth to seek vengeance against the planetary mogul who had framed and destroyed Jeff's family. Jeff's plans backfired: he was captured, drugged, rammed through a computerized court system, convicted...and ringed.

The ring : The ultimate high-tech civics lesson. A surgically implanted electronic monitor that automatically caused unendurable agony when a convict strayed from righteousness. A ringer would do no evil, think no evil, see or hear evil without ratting to the robocops nor defend himself or others from insult or injury.

And in a corrupt world of licensed sin and satanic parties, floral estates and city-sized slums, ringers were the ultimate victims. But the ring's data banks hadn't factored in Jeff Font's strength...courage...and his will to fight society, the world and the agony of the ring to unravel the plot that entrapped him, and see justice done.

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