| CODE | CRI2016 | ||||||||||||
| TITLE | The Politics of Crime and Punishment | ||||||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 02 - Years 2, 3 in Modular Undergraduate Course | ||||||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 5 | ||||||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 4 | ||||||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Criminology | ||||||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | Whether we like it or not, politics defines, shapes and controls us. It impacts all aspects of our lives, enabling access to rights and freedoms whilst demarcating duties, obligations and responsibilities. Politics is thus intrinsically linked to power, and power linked to both overt and subtle forms of control. Through the law-making process, politics has the ability to define us; categorizing us into law-abiding citizens, innocent victims or else label us criminals and delinquents. Through its governance of law and order, it has the power to exert on us a diverge range of social control mechanisms, from the constant monitoring and surveillance of our everyday lives to more punitive penal sanctions ranging from fines, community corrections to life imprisonment and the death penalty. Politics is intrinsically linked to ideology and ideology to policy development and programme implementation. Political ideologies are thus intrinsically linked to criminal justice policies, with underlying conceptions of crime and deviance shaping the form and extent of punishment. Politics thus governs the distribution of power and control in crime and punishment, establishing who and what will be defined as criminal and how, why and in what ways will be punished. This study-unit aims to address the complex relationship between crime and politics. In addressing this central question, it focuses on how politics impacts on the criminal justice system and how crime impacts on politics. The study-unit addresses the politicisation of crime by focusing on the processes through which criminal justice issues are utilized by legislatures and politicians to consolidate their popularity, electability and power, as well as the criminalisation of politics through the commission of state crime, and crimes of the powerful elite including white-collar crime, corruption and the abuse of entrusted power for personal gain. The study-unit also addressed the political economy of crime by focusing on structural inequalities and the treatment of minorities by the criminal justice system as well as the repression and criminalization of political dissent. The study-unit also highlights how criminology as a substantive area of study has increasingly become politicized. Study-unit Aims: The study-unit aims to: - critically appraise the relationship between politics and crime; - examine the impact of political ideology on criminal justice policies; - examine the relationship between power, inequality and social control; - examine the nature of state crimes and crimes of the powerful; - examine the politics of repression and criminalisation of dissent; - highlight the politicisation of criminology as an academic discipline. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - appreciate the complex and multi-layered relationship between politics and crime; - understand the impact of political ideology on criminal justice policies and forms of punitive sanctions; - appreciate how power and social control are unequally distributed on different segments of the population; - demonstrate knowledge of different forms of state crimes and crimes of the powerful and how these are treated by the criminal justice system; - demonstrate knowledge of different forms of crimes of dissent and how these are treated by the criminal justice system; - understand the role of criminology in promoting social change. 2. Skills By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - apply understanding of criminological theory to the implementation of punitive sanctions; - compare and contrast how the criminal justice system treats different forms of political crime, including both crimes of the powerful and crimes of dissent; - apply research skills to critically evaluate the politicality of crime and punishment; - evaluate the role of criminology as an academic discipline within the wider socio-economic and political environment. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: - Barak, G. (Ed.). (2015). The Routledge international handbook of the crimes of the powerful. Routledge. - Chamblis, W.J. (2001). Power, politics and crime. Westview Press. - McLaughlin, E. and J. Muncie, J. ed. (2013). Criminological Perspectives: Essential Readings, 3rd ed. London: SAGE. - Olsson, C. (2022). The criminalization of politics, the politics of criminalization and their paradoxes. Journal of Political Power, 15(1), 163-169. - Ross, J. I. (2012). An Introduction to Political Crime, Bristol: Policy Press. - Ross, J. I. (2003). The Dynamics of Political Crime, Thousand Oaks: Sage. - Ross, J. I. (2000). Varieties of State Crime and its Control, Monsey: Criminal Justice Press. |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | ||||||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Mary Grace Vella |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2024/5. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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