Enslavement, incarceration and servitude are part of the historical social fabric of many cultures. Such practices allowed societies to order their world while they simultaneously served as a means to punish and enforce social control. Incarceration has been used as a form of punishment for criminal activities, as a means to detain those perceived of holding undesirable ideologies or illnesses, and as a means to maximise profit through the use of unfree labour. This unit will take a historical and theoretical approach to the study of the interrelationships between crime (in its broadest definition), incarceration and servitude, through specific case studies across a diverse selection of historical periods, cultures and political contexts. Through these case studies students will explore a range of thematic issues through subjects as diverse as slavery, the rise of the prison, and a range of other institutional settings.