This course introduces postgraduate students to complex debates about the pursuit of justice in response to various harms and wrongs (in particular, harms and wrongs that are criminalised). Rather than assuming the necessity or inevitability of the criminal justice systems of the Global North and West, we start by examining how the pursuit of this kind of justice has been understood and conceptualised in different places around the world, and at different times.

Next, reflecting our Scottish, UK and European context, we examine the institutionalised forms of criminal justice that have emerged in contemporary liberal democracies (of the Global North and West) and how they interact with intersecting inequalities. Then, we ask how these criminal justice processes are experienced by people with different roles and stakes in them (e.g., as 'victims', 'offenders', families affected, practitioners) and whose experience of them may reflect their different social positions.

By exploring how 'criminal justice' has been conceptualised globally, and how it has been institutionalised and experienced in the North and West, we aim to develop a critical understanding of whether, to what extent and in what sense, these liberal democratic systems deliver justice; and to explore what can be learned from other approaches to delivering justice in the Global South and East.

10 x 2 hour in-person classes which combine short lecture inputs and seminar activities.

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30% [1,000 words]: Mid-term reflective writing assignment based on observing a Film or TV depiction of sentencing or sanctioning in criminal justice (to be agreed in advance with the Course Convenor).

70% [3,000 words]: An end-of-course essay.

This course aims to enable students to develop a critical understanding of how 'criminal' justice has evolved historically, how it has been institutionalised in contemporary democratic states (including in ways that exacerbate social inequalities), how it is experienced by those affected by it, and how it is instantiated through politics, policies, practices and public debate.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Describe how societies across different historical and global contexts have responded to harms and wrongs that are now often criminalised.

■ Critically examine major criminal justice institutions in contemporary liberal democracies, focusing on their relationships with intersecting inequalities.

■ Explore how justice processes are experienced by people in different roles (eg victims, offenders, families, publics) and shaped by social position

■ Analyse how criminal justice is constituted through politics, policy, and practice, and evaluate debates on reform and abolition.