#  Chapter Three -- Crime as Drama, Justice as Theatre 

 



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 **Abstract**

 Chapter 3 offers some theoretical foundations for a Shakespearean approach to crime and justice: *crime as drama* and *justice as theatre*. First, Shakespeare’s drama opens up to us a criminology that takes seriously the notion of “the scene of the crime”—with its authors, actors, audiences, genres, conventions, characters, plots, costumes, props, settings, scripts, and speeches—a dramaturgy discussed in a reading of the deliberately Shakespearean structure and tenor of the most famous crime in U.S. history, John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Second, scenes such as Shylock’s hearing in *The Merchant of Venice* and Angelo’s trial in *Measure for Measure* stage – literally *stage* – the deep theatricality of the justice system; just consider the theatrical architecture of the courthouse or the police press conference, with their front- and back-stages, their scripted speeches and improvisations, and us in the audience looking on.

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