Criminal Justice :

Race, Crime and Justice (01:202:425)

Spring 2007

Dr. Lisa L. Miller

Department of Political Science

This class explores the relationship between the criminal justice system and racial minorities in the United States. We will seek to understand some of the economic, political and sociological reasons why racial minorities, particularly African-Americans, are over-represented in the criminal justice system. We will also explore normative issues of justice and equity in broader social interactions that influence and are influenced by crime and the criminal process.

The course is centered around the following question: Does race matter in the criminal justice system? That is, does race matter for whether people come in contact with the criminal justice system? Does it matter for what happens to them once they are there? For how the criminal justice system reacts to crime and violence? Does it influence the types of crime policies we create or the manner in which those policies are implemented? We will spend the first section of the course trying to understand how social scientists find answers to these questions. We will look carefully at the challenges of isolating race from other demographic variables (such as income or education) and we will try to come to some conclusions about the degree to which race is a factor in criminal justice. We will also look at this question in historical settings and ask whether the criminal justice system is implicated in the maintenance of the vast disparities in educational and income attainment between whites and most racial minorities. Finally, we will try to understand some of the social, economic and political reasons for higher rates of criminal offending in some communities.

The course involves in-class exams, several papers, short quizzes and class participation.