Ed Cornelius: Thinking Sociologically about the Criminal Justice System

During his first year of law school in Brazil, Sociology professor Ed Cornelius became passionate about the sociology of law and punishment after taking a criminology course. Since then, his practical experience working in the legal defense of criminalized youth at this school’s clinic led him to pursue two master's degrees and a PhD. His second research project, which looks into the Brazilian fight against corruption, was influenced by his time as a student at the University of Texas at Austin. 

“I had the opportunity to take courses on American and international criminal law that made me reflect on the global components of crime control, a core element of the Brazilian anti-corruption experience,” Cornelius said.  

Now, Cornelius teaches students about his passion and continues to research corruption and the legal system in Brazil. 

What questions and ideas are you most interested in exploring right now? What problems does your work seek to address?

I am interested in how the legal profession and culture impact how, why, and to what extent we criminalize and punish certain behaviors and individuals. We know that lawyers are responsible for teaching criminal law, prosecuting, defending and deciding cases, advising politicians, and drafting bills. But, with rare exceptions, sociologists haven’t paid attention to the role of legal culture in shaping punishment discourses. This is partly due to the history of the sociology of law, which moved away from “law on the books” (court decisions, textbooks, codes, regulations) to ask broader questions about how social forces outside of the legal realm (gender, racialization, class) impact the law. This is what the field usually calls “law in action.”

Taking advantage of my training, both as a lawyer and a sociologist, I try to bring the sociological study of law in action closer to law on the books. I have explored this intellectual project in the realm of youth justice in my first book, The Worst of Both Worlds: The Superior Court of Justice Behavior in Youth Justice Cases, using different social sciences methods, such as qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and discourse analysis, to analyze judicial decisions.

Currently, my book project explores the role of legal ideas and doctrines in shaping Brazil’s penal policy.

What courses are you currently teaching or looking forward to teaching soon? What's special about them?

I have taught four different courses at the “U”. In SOC 4105, we explore classical and contemporary sociological perspectives on punishment, asking critical questions like: Who gets punished, how, and why? In addition to examining economic and political factors, we delve into the role of science in shaping penal institutions throughout history. The course places a key focus on how contemporary ideas about crime are rooted in scientific notions from the 19th and early 20th century, even when they no longer appear explicitly so. My aim is to help students interrogate these underlying assumptions and understand their enduring impact.

In SOC 4161, we turn our attention to the legal dimensions of punishment through a sociological lens. We engage with texts that examine Supreme Court decisions, the daily workings of courts, legislative processes, and criminal statutes. Students gain a nuanced understanding of how the executive, judiciary, and legislature collectively shape the criminal punishment system. One of the course's core lessons is to ask students to reflect on how different professionals and disciplines approach criminal law, including lawyers, philosophers, sociologists, and policy experts.

In Sociological Perspectives on the Criminal Justice System (SOC 3101),  we address one of the most pressing questions of our time: How did the United States come to have the highest incarceration rate in the world? The course is divided into two parts: one focusing on the social forces behind this trend, and the other on its consequences for people’s lives.

Criminal Procedure in American Society (SOC 4162), on the other hand, focuses on the procedural rules that have facilitated these trends. We examine key legal practices such as plea bargaining, pre-trial detention, and bail, as well as the lived experiences of both legal actors and criminalized individuals navigating these systems.

Across all these courses, I draw on my professional experience within the criminal punishment system to bring real-world examples into the classroom. I share insights gained from working directly with criminalized individuals and actors in the criminal punishment system. Additionally, I incorporate my research on a legal system outside the U.S. to offer students a comparative perspective. We explore how other countries address challenges differently and how aspects of the American penal system have been exported globally.

What are some takeaways students will get from your courses?

In my courses, students not only learn to think sociologically about the criminal justice system but also find a supportive space to explore their career goals in research, law, and policy. Students don't always know where to find information about career opportunities, so I make my courses a space where we can talk about them. I strive to share valuable information (and many personal anecdotes!) about graduate and law school, aiming to demystify the “hidden curriculum” that can discourage some students from pursuing these paths. 

I also invite guest speakers to come to class to share their professional experience. For example, in two courses, we hosted an attorney and law professor who shared their professional trajectory and experiences in court. I asked students to write a reflection about that presentation, and they seemed to have learned a lot from it.

What projects are you working on right now?

I’m excited to be working on a book project about Brazil’s recent fight against corruption, which culminated in the world's largest corruption scandal. Dubbed Operation Car Wash, the scandal became so entrenched in Brazilian culture that there is even a Netflix series about it. Car Wash and the fight against corruption are important not only because of how much people have become obsessed with it. The investigation led to criminal charges against several high-ranking businesspeople and politicians (including Brazil’s and other Latin American presidents). 

My main goal is to understand how the fight against corruption impacted not only economic but also traditional criminal law. In particular, I’m looking at how lawyers and legal culture shaped the importation of global penal discourses and practices in this process and the consequences for the country's penal landscape. To do that, I interviewed over 100 lawyers about their professional trajectories, did extensive ethnographic observations, and analyzed several documents for over a year in two Brazilian cities.

This story was edited by Avery Vrieze, an undergraduate student in CLA.