This course is about the institutional arrangements devised by societies to respond to crime. It provides an overview of the criminal justice system‐ and while not being explicitly comparative, locates the Caribbean in the wider international context offering some comparisons and contrasts with both the developed and some developing countries. It involves a survey of the politics, courts and corrections. This is done against the backdrop of the problems of definition and measurement of crime. General issues of consideration include‐ how and why the system developed in the region as it did; how theories relate to policies and how the existing system may be reformed and/or transformed. Considerable attention will be devoted to the relevance of the ideas discussed to contemporary Caribbean societies.