Crime and Punishment

The study of crime and punishment has become increasingly central to our understanding of how society works.  Crime varies widely across time and place, for example, and is deeply intertwined with multiple forms of social stratification.   Societal reactions to crime in the form of mass incarceration have in turn been linked to increasing racial and economic inequality.  This research cluster draws together faculty in sociology and across the university to address these and other fundamental questions about crime and its control.  The Program in Criminal Justice at the Kennedy School is a key institutional hub for intellectual dialogue.

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News related to Crime & Punishment

Ellis Monk

Faculty Spotlight: More Than Just Race: Skin Tone and the Criminal Justice System

April 1, 2020

For many decades now social scientists have shown how, in so many ways, one's ethnoracial background is associated with a whole host of important outcomes from educational attainment to labor market outcomes to health.  Many studies also provide compelling evidence of ethnoracial disparities in the criminal justice system – the probability of being arrested, incarcerated, and even the length of criminal sentences.  ... Read more about Faculty Spotlight: More Than Just Race: Skin Tone and the Criminal Justice System

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