Katie Kaufman Rogers

Course Description:

This is a course designed for undergraduate students to learn about the function and current manifestations of the American criminal legal system (“CLS”).  It will provide an introduction to the components and procedures of the CLS, paying close attention to how the system differentially operates on the basis of gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, and social class.  This course is designed to give students a broad picture of how the CLS operates beginning with a broad overview of its current breadth and complexity.  We will study the various components of the criminal legal system, like policing, courts, incarceration, post-incarceration, and collateral consequences of incarceration.  We will finish with an exploration of how we may move forward in the wake of mass incarceration with alternatives to punishment and opportunities for change.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Understand the development, breadth, function of the CLS and understand how race, class, and gender impact its development and maintenance.
• Critically read social science and other texts in order to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of evidence provided by authors.
• Develop sociological frameworks about punishment.
• Participate in class discussions and learn effective communication skills.
• Use evidence from social science publications to build arguments in original written materials. 

Description

This course examines the social construction of crime and society’s responses to it, with a focus on punishment as a method of social control. The course begins by historicizing settler-colonial origins of the U.S. criminal punishment system. Sociological approaches to power, deviance, and social control are introduced to contextualize this history. These frameworks are then applied to various components of the modern U.S. criminal punishment system, including criminalization, policing, courts, and incarceration (including immigrant detention). Resistance, reforms, abolition, and other alternatives to these systems are explored. Special attention is paid to how power operates through punishment and (re)produces inequalities at the intersections of race/ethnicity, citizen status, gender, sexuality, and social class.

Required Texts

N/A (all texts will be provided by the instructor)

Grading Policy

Weekly Quizzes                   10 pts (10%)

In-Class Activities                30 pts (30%)

Midterm Exam                      30 pts (30%)

Final Exam                            30 pts (30%)

Scores will not be rounded up or down

(e.g., an A- includes all scores 90.000 through 92.999)

Course Description:

This is a course designed for undergraduate students to learn about the function and current manifestations of the American criminal legal system (“CLS”).  It will provide an introduction to the components and procedures of the CLS, paying close attention to how the system differentially operates on the basis of gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, and social class.  This course is designed to give students a broad picture of how the CLS operates beginning with a broad overview of its current breadth and complexity.  We will study the various components of the criminal legal system, like policing, courts, incarceration, post-incarceration, and collateral consequences of incarceration.  We will finish with an exploration of how we may move forward in the wake of mass incarceration with alternatives to punishment and opportunities for change.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Understand the development, breadth, function of the CLS and understand how race, class, and gender impact its development and maintenance.
• Critically read social science and other texts in order to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of evidence provided by authors.
• Develop sociological frameworks about punishment.
• Participate in class discussions and learn effective communication skills.
• Use evidence from social science publications to build arguments in original written materials.