Individual Liberty and Mass Incarceration

Many of the most renowned theorists of classical criminologists were in fact self identified political economists and political philosophers amidst the classical liberal and enlightenment tradition. Patterns of crime and punishment have significantly changed since the enlightenment period. This course asks simply: what would the enlightenment classical liberals have to say about today’s unique trends? Whereas Adam Smith was fascinated by and arguably successful in comprehending why some countries are rich and others poor; we borrow his analytical tool kit to investigate why some societies incarcerate more than others.