Number
109Z
CCN
24016
Times
Tu/Th 11am-12:30pm
Location
SOCS166
Course Description
Crime and Democracy examines why the United States has unusually high rates of police violence, interpersonal violence, and incarceration—and why democratic accountability has failed to correct them. The course surveys competing theories of crime and punishment, including voter responses to crime, political incentives, and institutional capacity, while focusing especially on an account that traces these outcomes to post-emancipation political incentives and the long-run consequences of racially unequal criminal justice institutions. We study how state violence, criminalization, and distrust of legal authority became mutually reinforcing, persisted through the Great Migration, and continue to shape crime and policing today. Throughout, students evaluate historical and contemporary quantitative evidence to assess causal claims about crime, democracy, and state power.
Students who took PS 191 "Junior Seminar: Crime and Democracy" with Professor Lenz cannot take this course due to the substantial similarity in course content.
Course number changed from PS109 to 109Z as of 10/8/25.
Prerequisites
PS 3 or Data 8 is a prerequisite or co-requisite for this class. We will be monitoring enrollment. If you are not concurrently enrolled in or have not taken PS3 or Data 8, you will be DROPPED.