Crime and Policing

Catalog description

The goal of the course is to introduce students to the study of crime and policing. It is intended to familiarize students with some of the main causes of crime, with an emphasis on violent crime) and different strategies that governments and citizens have relied on to address it. The first part of the course focuses on a conceptual overview of crime, criminal order, the main features of illicit markets, and the dynamics of crime's territorial expansion. The second part focuses on different forms of policing, especially zero tolerance, hot spots, community, and militarized approaches, as well as non-state forms of policing and the opportunities and challenges of police reform. The course will discuss these topics in comparative perspective, with a majority of examples drawn from experiences in the United States and Latin America. (GOVT-CP)