This article was developed as part of a faculty curriculum development project designed to assist faculty from a variety of disciplines in integrating information and perspectives from 3rd world countries into their courses.
One important lesson related to crime and criminal justice is the behaviors committed by individuals against other individuals = crime (through legal fiction are fictional ‘social harms but still crimes)’; behaviors committed by governments / industries that hurt societies as a whole (‘real social harms’) = not crimes!
This paper argues for and attempts to demonstrate the case for including materialsrelated to the operation of Third World criminal justice in courses dealing with American criminal justice system. The author argues that an examination of the contexts and processes of criminal justice in Third World nations increases one’s ability to understand and critique pervasive ideological overtones we come to accept unquestionably in our own system simplybecause it is the one in which we operate.
Within the context of poverty, “dual societies,” chronic political instability, the strugglefor economic development, and colonialism, the Third World offers an opportunity to studythe interaction and impact of law, politics, economics, social control, and social change onthe development and operations of criminal justice. Using examples from the literature of anthropology, law and social change, and political and economic development, the author attempts to demonstrate the usefulness of this interdisciplinary approach and the Third World context in teaching about the criminal justice system.