Critical Perspectives on Criminal Justice and Social Control

This master’s course takes a constructionist approach to crime, law, and social control. It offers you in-depth knowledge of social harm, criminal law, criminal policy from socio-legal, and criminological perspectives.

In the course’s three topics, you study how we construct crime and control. You explore current trends in criminal justice and policy and how they have developed. The final part of the course goes beyond standard criminal justice approaches and explores possible alternatives.

The teaching consists of lectures, exercises, and workshops where you present and comment on other students’ ongoing work. During the course, you produce and collect content to include in a portfolio. To pass the course, you must have received at least a grade of E. To receive a higher grade, part 1 (essay) must have received a higher grade.

Course syllabus

The syllabus contains the formal and legal details of the entire course. It’s a legal document outlining the course structure and requirements, intended mainly for administrative use.

Course literature

The course literature listed may be updated up to eight weeks before the course begins.

One module with three core topics

Topic 1: The social construction of crime and control. 
In the first part of the course, you explore how ideas about crime and deviance are shaped by society rather than being fixed or natural. You learn that what counts as “criminal” or “deviant” depends on social structures, power relations, and the people involved, both those being labelled and those doing the labelling. The focus is on understanding how laws, norms, and systems of control are created and maintained, and how they reflect broader social and political forces. This social constructionist perspective challenges the idea that crime is constant and naturally existing.

Topic 2: Criminal justice and policy in the 21st century 
This topic goes deeper into current trends in criminal justice and criminal policy, which are characterised by the factors:

• risk and security thinking,
• the weakening of the state’s social structures, which were replaced by strengthened crime control structures,
• and by singling out some groups as the dangerous other.

We aim to understand the structural trends that have led to this development.

Topic 3: Alternative criminal policy and justice 
The final part of this course aims to go beyond the standard approaches to criminal justice, policy, and social control in the global North, to examine alternatives used and offered when understanding and responding to the unwanted.

Prerequisites

To be admitted to the course, students must have at least Bachelor's degree including: 90 credits in the sociology of law or other relevant disciplines such as sociology, criminology, law, political science, social work, or the equivalent. Oral and written proficiency in English equivalent to English 6/B from Swedish upper secondary school is a requirement. International qualifications will be assessed in accordance with national guidelines. International students are excepted from the general entry requirements on to master Swedish.

Selection criteria

Seats are allocated according to: ECTS (HPAV): 100 %.

Tuition fees for non-EU/EEA citizens

Citizens of countries outside:

• The European Union (EU)
• The European Economic Area (EEA) and
• Switzerland

are required to pay tuition fees. You pay an instalment of the tuition fee in advance of each
semester.

Tuition fees, payments and exemptions

Full programme/course tuition fee: SEK 16,875
First payment: SEK 16,875

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Note that you may also need to pay an application fee, or provide proof of exemption.

Application fee

No tuition fees for citizens of the EU, EEA and Switzerland

There are no tuition fees for citizens of the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland.