01:202:203 Prisons and Prisoners
Description: Origins and methods of revenge, coercive custody, confinement, punishment, rehabilitation, restitution, deterrence, and prisoner education programs examined. Includes emphasis on current controversies related to jail and prison overcrowding, treatment of violent juveniles and chemically dependent offenders, and AIDS risk assessment of juvenile and adult offenders.
 
Prerequisites: 01:202:201
Course Synopsis:

Professor WELCH, Section 01: The course intends to survey the expanding boundaries of corrections, punishment, and social control. By emphasizing a critical approach to the criminal justice apparatus, prevailing myths and ideologies shall be confronted, allowing students to understand how key social forces (i.e., economics, politics, morality, and technology) shape the use of prisons in contemporary society. Likewise, considerable attention is directed at the internal workings of corrections, including various institutional problems and issues (e.g., violence, the death penalty, the war on drugs, racism, and classism). The general goal of the course is to foster an intelligent and sophisticated view of corrections and its many contradictions.

A few words about Convict Criminology:  Convict Criminology proposes a methodology, a theory, and a perspective about the study of correctional environments and its occupants.  Its study could easily occupy a full semester of work.  This semester will provide you with an introduction to that theory and that perspective for your consideration.  Dr. Richards ends every email with the message, “we have been tough on crime, now we need to be smart on crime.”  This semester proposes to offer an exploration or prisons and prisoners with the tenets of convict criminology as its underpinnings.

Professor SOTO, Section 02: The course will focus on Prisons and Punishment in American society. The prison is the symbol of punishment in western society. Apart from the general and historical claims made on punishment, we will be concerned with the policy implications of the existence of prisons. We will discuss the purposes of prison, rehabilitation, and explore the issue of alternatives to incarceration. This course will emphasize classical and contemporary sociological and historical texts, case law, inmate memoirs, and fictional accounts of prison life. As we learn to connect crime to social cohesion, cultural diversity, labor issues, and racial, ethnic and gender differences, we will discover and sample various perspectives on punishment

 
Current Syllabus: Spring 2018 WELCH
Spring 2018 SOTO
 
Previous Syllabi:

Fall 2017 SHERIDAN
Fall 2017 SOTO
Spring 2017 WELCH
Spring 2017 SHERIDAN
Fall 2016 WELCH

Fall 2016 SIULC
Spring 2016 WELCH

Spring 2016 SHERIDAN
Fall 2015 WELCH

Fall 2015 SIULC
Summer 2015 SZEJNER
Spring 2015 WELCH

Spring 2015 SHERIDAN
Fall 2014 WELCH
Fall 2014 SHERIDAN

Summer 2014 SZEJNER
Spring 2014 MUNI

Spring 2014 SIULC
Fall 2013 WELCH
Fall 2013 SHERIDAN
Summer 2013 SZEJNER
Spring 2013 WELCH
Spring 2013 SIULC
Fall 2012 WELCH
Fall 2012 SHERIDAN
Summer 2012 SZEJNER
Spring 2012 SHERIDAN
Fall 2011 SHERIDAN