Dr Richard Martin

This course will take you on a journey through the criminal process to explore the interplay of law, power and decision-making that animate its everyday workings.

We examine the legal standards that govern the state’s power to control, coerce and punish those suspected (or proven) to have committed crimes. But we do not stop there. Crucially, we proceed to explore how these laws are exercised by legal actors, including police, prosecutors and judges in their routine decisions and practices.

The course speaks directly to the real-world issues and controversies encountered by criminal justice systems in many developed democracies today – racial injustices, abuses of police power, mass incarceration, penal populism, law’s potential to reform organizations, to name but a few.

We will rely on comparative case studies from across the world, just as you are encouraged to draw on your expertise and experiences from your home countries or countries of study.