Mohsen al Attar

The idea that the criminal law protects an individual’s rights over property is usually taken for granted. Yet many of today’s laws are derived almost unchanged from those developed several centuries ago by parliaments that were comprised of propertied men who wrote laws to protect their own material interests. This lecture examines how the early history of criminal law on property reflected the power relations of early industrial capitalism and provides the basis for discussing whether the criminal law on property still reflects the inequality of rich and poor today.