Crime and Punishment: Theory, Criminal Politics, and Human Rights

We will study theoretical and practical problems related to the phenomenon of crime and crime control. In the first half of the course we will learn how crime is being defined and how media and mass culture shape our perceptions about this social problem. We will also learn about crime statistics and compare crime in different regions of the world. One of the goals is to understand why people commit crimes and what makes them to abstain from deviance. Punishment as well as other strategies of crime control will be explored. We will focus both on preventive and reactive strategies tracing how these evolved through history. Privatization of crime control, regulation, and responsibility will be the topics explored in detail. We will also take a look at human rights problems in the area of criminal justice. Russian legislation as well as European standards of human rights protection will be analyzed.