Sociology and Criminology, Saint Mary's University

Sociology and Criminology

Dr. Alfried Schulte-Bockholt (Associate Professor, Full-Time Faculty)

Alfredo Schulte-Bockholt, Associate Professor at the Department of Criminology and Sociology, teaches courses on organized and state crime as well as crime in developing countries. Dr. Schulte-Bockholt views himself as a political criminologist as his work primarily focuses on the unlawful activities of the powerful – with an emphasis on crime and victimization in the developing societies of Latin America. He has frequently traveled in that part of the world and is sufficiently fluent in Spanish. He is especially interested in concepts of criminal power while his academic efforts are largely informed by the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, particularly the works of Max Horkheimer (1895-1973).

Dr. Schulte-Bockholt's present research revolves around corruption in Peru during the Fujimori era (1990-2000) for which he had received a 3-year SSHRC research grant in 2004. The Fujimori regime has been styled the world's first imagocratic dictatorship given its propensity to rely on the yellow press rather than open repression to destroy the political opposition – as is historically the norm in Latin America. Dr. Schulte-Bockholt's work analyzes how corruption is used as an ‘instrument of domination' to keep in power a criminal clique that largely aims at enriching itself. In addition, he examines the various actors – ranging from political parties and foreign multinational corporations to powerful groups within Peru's Catholic church – without whose support the regime would have crumbled years earlier. Dr. Schulte-Bockholt also shows that the costs or 'negative externalities' of corrupt transactions go far beyond the economic losses suffered when a corrupt official or politician transfers his or her illicit earnings to a numbered bank account in the Bahamas or Switzerland. Lastly, Dr. Schulte-Bockholt demonstrates how corrupt practices introduced during the 1990s have carried over into the present although Peru is once again a democracy. The completed manuscript is to be published in book form late 2011/early 2012.

Curriculum Vitae

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Course Listings for Fall 2011