SOC-224 Crime, Law, and Inequality
This course examines crime, criminalization, and social control from a sociological perspective. Rather than treating crime as simply the violation of law, we examine how crime is socially and politically constructed and how practices of punishment and regulation emerge through broader struggles over power, morality, and social order. Topics include moral panics, addiction and criminalization, policing and surveillance, mass incarceration, organized crime, mafia networks, illicit drug economies, corporate crime, state violence, terrorism, and border enforcement. Students will critically evaluate competing explanations of crime and examine how criminalization and social control both shape and are shaped by relations of power, inequality, governance, and social change.
Standard Course (40)
Credits
1