B8942 - Law, Crime & Punishment

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course unit, students: - know the most important concepts of sociology as applied nowadays with reference to criminal phenomena and their punishment, with an emphasis on the evolutionary dimension of relevant theories and the comparison between European and North American approaches; - are capable to apply those concepts independently, especially in fields covering deviance and social control.

Course contents

Why do people commit crimes? Why and how do we punish offenders? This course explores these fundamental questions by engaging with key criminological and sociological theories and debates on crime and its responses from a historical perspective.

The seminar is part of the two-year Master's program in Legal Studies and is also open to Erasmus students.

Attendance of at least 70% of the seminar sessions is mandatory for LEGS students and all students attending the course. For non-attending students, the assessment will differ slightly from that of students who attend the course (see below).

Readings/Bibliography

The following 18 key readings are mandatory for all students:

1. Garland, D. (1985). The criminal and his science: A critical account of the formation of criminology at the end of the nineteenth century. The British Journal of Criminology, 25(2), 109-137.

2. Davis, M. (2017[1999]). Fortress Los Angeles: the militarization of urban space. In Cultural Criminology (pp. 287-314). Routledge.

3. Schuilenburg, M., & Peeters, R. (2018). Smart cities and the architecture of security: pastoral power and the scripted design of public space. City, Territory and Architecture, 5, 1-9.

4. Agnew, R. (2012). Reflection on “A revised strain theory of delinquency”. Social Forces, 91(1), 33-38.

5. Agnew, R. (2012). Dire forecast: A theoretical model of the impact of climate change on crime. Theoretical Criminology, 16(1), 21-42.

6. Alexander C. (2008). (Re)thinking 'Gangs'. Runnymede Perspectives.

7. Smithson, H., Ralphs, R., & Williams, P. (2013). Used and abused: The problematic usage of gang terminology in the United Kingdom and its implications for ethnic minority youth. British Journal of Criminology, 53(1), 113-128.

8. Dum, C. P., Norris, R. J., & Weng, K. (2017). Punishing benevolence: The criminalization of homeless feeding as an act of state harm. Critical Criminology, 25, 483-506.

9. Canning, V., Hillyard, P., and Tombs, S. (2023). Social harm and zemiology. In: The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 7th ed. (ch. 23).

10. Lea, J. (2016). Left Realism: A radical criminology for the current crisis. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 5(3), 53-65.

11. Ilan, J. (2019). Cultural Criminology: The Time is Now. Critical Criminology 27, 5–20.

12. Fatsis, L. (2019). Grime: Criminal subculture or public counterculture? A critical investigation into the criminalization of Black musical subcultures in the UK. Crime, Media, Culture, 15(3), 447-461.

13. Burman, M., and Gelsthorpe, L. (2023). Feminist criminology: inequalities, powerlessness, and justice. In: Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 7th ed. (ch. 17).

14. Jenness, V., Sexton, L., & Sumner, J. (2019). Sexual victimization against transgender women in prison: Consent and coercion in context. Criminology, 57(4), 603-631.

15. Fileborn, B. (2017). Justice 2.0: Street harassment victims’ use of social media and online activism as sites of informal justice. The British Journal of Criminology, 57(6), 1482-1501.

16. Vegh Weis, V. (2023). Who can organize and exercise effective resistance? A southern criminology perspective on the victimology of state crime. Theoretical Criminology, 27(3), 381-403.

17. Dimou, E. (2021). Decolonizing Southern criminology: What can the “decolonial option” tell us about challenging the modern/colonial foundations of criminology?. Critical Criminology, 29, 431-450.

18. Rodriguez Goyes, D., South, N., Abaibira, M. A., Baicué, P., Cuchimba, A., & Ñeñetofe, D. T. R. (2021). Genocide and ecocide in four Colombian Indigenous communities: The erosion of a way of life and memory. The British Journal of Criminology, 61(4), 965-984.

 

In addition to the 18 readings above, non-attending students are also required to study:

- Chapters 4 to 9, 12, and 13 (eight chapters in total), from the book: Carrabine E, Cox A, Cox P, Crowhurst I, Di Ronco A, Fussey P, Sergi A, South N, Thiel D, and Turton J. (2020), Criminology: A Sociological Introduction, 4th ed., London, Routledge. A few copies of this book are available at the library.

Teaching methods

Lectures, class discussions, movies, guest speakers.

Assessment methods

Written exam consisting of 3 questions.

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Students who attend the course (i.e. at least 70% of its sessions) can reduce the scope of the final written examination—answering only two questions instead of three—by delivering an individual or group presentation at the end of the course. In these presentations, students are expected to analyse representations of crime or punishment as depicted in films, television programs, or news media of their choice, and link them to one or more relevant criminological or sociological perspectives covered during the course. Detailed instructions regarding this assessment option will be provided during the course. 

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Students with learning disorders and/or temporary or permanent disabilities: please contact the office responsible (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students ) as soon as possible so that they can propose acceptable adjustments. The request for adaptation must be submitted in advance (15 days before the exam date) to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of the adjustments, taking into account the teaching objectives.

Teaching tools

Power point presentations, audio-visual materials.

Office hours

See the website of Anna Di Ronco