Crime and the city
SOCI3069
CPD-3.29
14:30 – 17:20
Friday
2nd semester
Lecture venue
Lecture time
Offer semester
How do cities produce and respond to criminality and transgressions in the everyday context? Why do some people retreat into fortified enclaves for protection while others derive excitement from doing edgework in the city? This course examines key questions and debates about crime, disorder and social deviance in city landscapes. It focuses on three broad issues: different meanings and dimensions of the crime problem (the ‘what’ and the ‘who’ questions); the relationship between crime, space and place (the ‘where’ and the ‘how’ questions); and the complex mix of informal and formal social controls that influence different types and levels of crime and the urban imagination. Its overall objective is to provide students with the criminological knowledge and conceptual tools to think critically and comparatively about crime and social order in an increasingly globalizing and polarizing world.
This course is delivered in a 3 hour lecture format (with breaks).
An ability to understand main criminological concepts and debates and associated key works.
An ability to assess competing assumptions and rationales in the study of crime, transgressions and the city and their relevance to social (dis)order and citizenship in the local and global context.
An ability to develop a reasoned argument and to present ideas in a clear and concise manner in oral presentation and in written work.
Tasks
Weighting
Group project
30%
Individual exercise
20%
Individual essay
50%
Atkinson, R. and Millington, G. (2018), Urban Criminology – The City, Disorder, Harm and Social Control, London: Routledge.
Young, A. (2014), Street Art, Public City: Law, Crime, and the Urban Imagination, London: Routledge.
Innes, M. (2014), Signal Crimes: Social Reactions to Crime, Disorder and Control, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chiu, S. and Siu, K. (2022), ‘Hong Kong as the safest place in the world?’ in Chiu and Siu (eds), Hong Kong Society: High definition stories beyond the spectacle of east-meets-west, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
