The Politics of Crime and Punishment

Catalog description

This course examines the politics of crime, criminalization, and punishment within the context of how state institutions are expanded, consolidated, and legitimized. By considering the relationship between crime, punishment and the state, this course will present some of the diverse ways in which political leaders and their opponents have used crime and punishment to shape, extend, or resist state institutions over time. The course is comparative in nature which means material is primarily drawn from outside of the United States, though the U.S. and New York will be discussed as part of our examination of the politics of other countries.