Crime and Social Control

Overview

The Crime and Social Control (CSC) specialization provides comprehensive training in sociological criminology with specific emphasis on inequality, crime, and social control. A core tenet of the area is that the criminal justice system both reflects and is central to reproducing social inequality. Faculty in the area teach and conduct research on how inequalities of race, ethnicity, gender, geography, class, nationality, sexuality, and intersecting inequalities influence crime, violence, victimization, and criminal justice experiences.

Graduate Courses

• Theories of Deviant Behavior (SOC 721): Provides an introduction to the major criminological traditions. The course traces the origins of criminological theories, examining the underlying assumptions of theories, major contributions to criminology, and empirical findings generated by quantitative and qualitative research in the theoretical traditions. Particular emphasis is placed on evaluating recent theoretical developments in criminology, focusing on the extent to which new developments move us beyond traditional perspectives and can help make sense of contemporary realities.
• Social Control (SOC 722): offers an exploration of the theoretical concepts and racialized underpinnings of social control. Emphasis is placed on understanding how the historical racialized foundations of social control and punishment inform contemporary institutions of control, with a particular focus on policing, the American legal system, and carceral systems (including jail, prison, and other forms of incapacitation). The course also addresses the consequences of contact with social control, emphasizing how criminal justice contacts contribute to the reproduction of inequities inside and outside the system.
• Conflict and Violence (SOC 791): provides an overview of the work in criminology and related social sciences on conflict, terrorism, and violence. Emphasis is placed on understanding the theoretical foundations of the study of violence to better understand recent perspectives on organized violence. Students will gain understanding of the historical processes underlying the relationship between state and violence, various methodological approaches to studying conflict and violence, case studies of conflict and violence (often in international perspective, nesting these case studies within dominant theoretical perspectives), and dynamics of peace processes, conflict de-escalation, and perspectives on non-violence. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding how social and political processes related to ethnicity, imperialism, and community cohesion influence forms of violence.
• Communities and Crime (SOC 791 CC): provides an overview of theory and research on communities and crime with an emphasis on how discriminatory practices across major institutions (labor market, housing market, patterns of neighborhood disinvestment and reinvestment, and racialized criminal justice policies) relate to community dynamics and community crime rates. The course explores links between communities and crime through topics such as the formation of suburbs, gentrification, policing and surveillance, incarceration, reentry, and immigration.
• Gender and Crime (SOC 795): offers an overview of theory and research on gender and crime. The course explores how social structures, culture, and situations influence offending among individuals and groups differentially situated in gender hierarchies. Emphasis is placed on understanding that the gender system intersects with a variety of systems and dimensions of oppression (e.g., race, ethnicity, and class) that inform life experiences, offending, and experiences in the criminal justice system.

Faculty

Theses and Dissertations

Graduate Student Awards, Publications and Jobs