Designing engagement: a student-based perspective of the economics of crime

ABSTRACT This paper, developed by participants in an Economics of Crime course at Northeastern University in conjunction with their professor, highlights student perspectives of the relationship between the economic system, its operations and institutions, and the marginalization and victimization of Black people. The paper addresses specific attributes of the course curriculum that facilitated student understanding of these topics, and in doing so suggests an alternative pedagogy for discussing crime from an economics disciplinary perspective. The inclusion of historical context in the criminalization of race and poverty aligns to bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress, as course engagement centers on social context and responsibility while also critically assessing economic models of crime that have arguably obscured the relationship between racial discrimination, economic opportunity, legitimized slavery, and monetization of human life, and instead have provided credibility to economic incentives for crime by assuming rational behavior and free will. Additionally, inclusion of the causes and criminalization of groups and resulting student outcomes from the course provide an example of bell hooks’ learning community and reflects the engagement between students and their professor.