This subject seeks to provide students with a theoretical framework in which to understand crime as a particular social phenomenon: the criminalisation of particular social activities, who commits crime and whose social activities are more likely to be policed. Through an analysis of selected readings and case studies, we will look at the role of sex, race and class in explaining men's and male adolescents disproportionate participation in crime, men's and women's involvement as victims of specific types of crime and why, when women and female adolescents do commit crime, their criminality disrupts the construction of normative, 'law-abiding' femininity. The case studies we will examine this semester include:
(i) The Trouble with Men and Boys
(ii) The Colour of Crime: race and crime statistics
(iii) The Creation of Crime through Moral Panics: sex crimes and the criminal body.