This course gives students the opportunity to get to grips with cutting-edge issues of law, policy and practice that are defining the future of law enforcement, crime and punishment. The course takes its lead from the most pressing controversies confronting criminal justice policymakers in democracies across the world right now, including abuses of police power, racial injustice, victims’ rights, extreme punishments, the potential (and pitfalls) of AI and predictive technologies.
In approaching these topics, the course has three defining features:
First, it is comparative. We draw on, and learn from, comparative case studies from across the world (particularly the US, Europe and the UK), and students are encouraged to bring their expertise and experiences from home countries or countries of study.
Second, it is interdisciplinary. 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, the course integrates empirical studies offering insight into how laws are exercised by police, prosecutors and judges in their everyday practices.
Third, it is problem oriented. Class discussions are anchored in mock scenarios, role plays, and reform exercises that require to analysis, evaluate and apply the academic scholarship in a way that influence lawyers, policymakers and criminal justice practitioners – to consider problems, propose solutions and envisage future reform agendas.