2021/22

Advanced Theory in Criminology and Social Justice aims to critically engage students with core theories and major advances in criminological theory. Key issues and advances within core areas of theoretical criminology will be explored, including classicism feminist criminology; abolitionism, post-colonial criminology, and queer criminology, for example. The course will explore the theoretical resources of criminology in order to think about the discipline,   not simply a practical activity (as something concerned with the process or administration of criminal justice) but as an activity comprising a distinct epistemology. The module covers the major theoretical developments within criminology and asks how criminological theory helps us to  elucidate  and interrogate criminal justice problems such as punishment, incarceration, social control, and social justice. Our concerns will be linked to existential and ethical questions about crime, justice,  poverty, welfare, and social activism. Finally, the course will address the extent to which it is possible to create and sustain a ‘progressive’ agenda for the future of criminal justice. In order to capture the realities of imprisonment,  the socio-construction of deviance we will look  films such as Sur le Troits  and  the writings of Jane Addams, John Dewey, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, George Orwell, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Emma Goldman, Charles Dickens,Shanthini Naidoo and others.