The author argues that an examination of the contexts and processes of criminal justice in Third World nations increases one's ability to understand and critique the history and operations of our criminal justice enterprises. The Third World contex offers laboratories for testing assumptions about American criminal justice without the implicitly pervasive ideological overtones we come to accept unquestionably in our own system simply because it is the one in which we operate. Within the context of poverty, 'dual societies,' chronic political instability, the struggle for economic development, and colonialism, the Third World offers an opportunity to study the interaction and impact of law, politics, economics, social control, and social change on the development and operations of criminal justice. Using examples from the literature of anthropology, law and social change, and political and economic development, the author attempts to demonstrate the usefulness of this interdisciplinary approach and the Third World context in teaching about the criminal justice system. (Publisher abstract)