summarize and reword Thus, the criminalization of dissent involves a broad range of actions by the state that uses legal and extra$-$legal measures to silence civil dissent and political opposition $($Shantz$,2011).$ In order to understand how dissent is treated as a crime, it is first necessary to understand what dissent is and who might want to stop it$.$ If everything you knew about dissent came from the way protest was por$-$traved by police, the mainstream media, and many politicians, you might think that dissent was an unfortunate aberration and not something that was necessary and normal in a democracy. You might also think of protest not as a political intervention but as a random disruption, like a gang of people yelling in the street and blocking traffic for no reason. However, by demonstrating that protest is a fundamental part of a democracy and that it is all about challenging representative aspects of the existing social order, this chapter illustrates why protest is repressed, according to critical scholarship: broadly, because it poses a challenge to those in power.