What is a crime? Why do people commit criminal forms of violence against each other? How is crime interpreted, monitored, and challenged by the public authorities? How do crime and criminal justice intersect pivotal issues of social inequality and overall power-management in current societies? This course will introduce you to the core questions, theoretical frameworks, and research methods of criminology, which is an extremely multidisciplinary discipline studying crime, crime prevention, criminal justice, and their sociological implications. In the first part of the course, we will pinpoint the genealogies of thought from which contemporary criminology historically emerged, while evaluating their influence on current “common sense” interpretations of crime and security. We will then examine more recent theories in critical criminology, which stress the central role played by racial, gendered, and class-based forms of structural inequality in the dynamics through which crime is commonly interpreted, enacted, and challenged. Drawing on these theories, we will then debate how diverse criminal phenomena articulate among variously empowered sectors of current societies. We will do so through the multidisciplinary analysis of concrete criminological case studies, which will help us to better understand the inner sociological causes and consequences of crime.
- Teacher: Mouna Abdallah
- Teacher: Salma Amazit
- Teacher: Salvatore Giusto
- Teacher: mojibola obadimeji
- Teacher: Antoun Shahin
- Teacher: Jonah Tully