Race, Crime and Justice

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
• Convenor and tutor: Monish Bhatia
• Assessment: a 4000-word essay (100%)

This optional module will take you through a comprehensive analysis of how issues of race and ethnicity intersect with questions of crime and justice. It will firstly introduce the key concepts and theories relating to race and crime, followed by substantive topics, which will examine the social, political and economic processes that define, construct and respond to crime and victims in a racialised manner. The module will provide you with a critical understanding of state and criminalisation processes, and explore various contemporary issues pertaining to minorities and criminal justice system as well as the victimology of race across much of the West.

Indicative module content

• Concept and construction of ‘race’ and ethnicity
• Counter-colonial criminology
• Encounters with the law enforcement
• Imprisonment of minorities
• Islam, terrorism and policing
• Crimes amongst immigrants
• Race, crime and media representation
• Victimology of race
• Solitary confinement, medicalisation and violence (guest lecture by Dr Jon Burnett)
• Abolishing prisons
• Race, conflict and human rights

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• understand complex and challenging perspectives on the link between 'race' and crime
• understand the politics of criminalisation, prejudice, myths and racism; criminal 'injustice'; 'race' and offending behaviour
• critically analyse the role of the state in the criminalisation process
• assess policy decisions on race and crime
• understand contemporary criminological theories and perspectives
• understand the culturally determined and socially constructed character of criminal justice discourses and processes.