Sociology of Crime and Punishment
SOC 231
Fall 2015 not offered
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This course provides an introduction to the sociological study of crime and punishment. Crime is rarely far from news headlines or the public imagination. Every day, reports of drug dealing, muggings, and homicide fuel anxiety and debate about the problems of law and order. Here we consider such debates in the context of both a vision for a just society and the everyday workings of the criminal justice system. The course is divided into three sections. We begin with an introduction to the historical meanings and measures of crime in society. We then situate the modern United States within this history. In part two, we become familiar with the major ways that social scientists think about criminality and crime prevention. In part three, we turn to considerations of punishment. We ask how punishment is conceptualized in the United States and other nations, whether the American system of mass imprisonment is effective, and how we might envision improvements and alternatives. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS SOC |
| Course Format: Lecture | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: SOC151 |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (SOC)(STS) |
Major Readings:
Includes selections from Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault; Criminality from a Sense of Guilt by Sigmund Freud; Code of the Streets: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City by Elijah Anderson; Doing Time Together: Love and Family in the Shadow of Prison by Megan Comfort
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Examinations and Assignments:
Close readings of assigned texts; in-class participation; short papers; mid-term and optional final exam. |
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