Towards A Pedagogy Of Wage Theft: Making Criminology Relevant To The Exploitation Our Students Face

• In Event: Critical Perspectives on Emergent and Current Issues

Abstract

Wage theft is the non-payment of employee wages due under law and contract and it affects up to one-third of employees. Many low- and middle-income high school and college students will experience wage theft, so by not discussing wage theft in criminology classes, programs miss an important opportunity to make classes relevant to students. Universities say they want to prepare students for the job market, and this presentation is an effort to discuss how to integrate the topic of wage theft into a variety of criminology and criminal justice classes. It will cover the basics of wage theft, its enforcement (and lack thereof), criminological questions that connect with wage theft, and some model assignments.

Author

• Paul Leighton, Eastern Michigan University