The Politics of Violence and Crime in America

Catalog description

This course examines why the United States is an exceptionally violent country compared to peer democracies. Growing corporate impunity, the financialization of the economy, and waves of corporate crime have fostered corporate, economic, state, political, and interpersonal violence in America. So have the forever wars, militarized policing, and the changing carceral state. This advanced-level seminar examines the origins and consequences of these developments, including how they have undermined the legitimacy of American political and economic institutions; siphoned off critical resources to vanquish the root causes of violent street crime and curtail the deaths of despair from suicide, alcoholism, drug overdoses, and chronic diseases; and hastened the fragility of democracy in America. Specific topics include the causes of interpersonal violence; mass incarceration and the carceral state; militarized policing; the rise of the white power movement; the decriminalization of corporate crime; the 2007-09 financial and foreclosure crises; the global war on terror and the forever wars; the opioid crisis; global warming and planetary violence; and U.S. gun culture and gun policy. This is a book-centered, multidisciplinary, discussion-based seminar designed for juniors and seniors. Interested sophomores should directly contact the professor for permission to enroll. The course is not open to first-year students.