ClassInfo

This 10-week summer course builds upon SOC 1101, examining the police, courts, corrections, and reentry processes as outcomes and producers of social inequality. Our focus will be upon laws, policies, and practices that shape patterned social processes more broadly, so while the criminal justice system is the chief concern, we will analyze the intersection of crime control and institutions (macro), organizations (meso), and interactions (micro).

Students will:

· understand how crime control shapes and is shaped by categorical inequalities

· understand the role of court culture in shaping legal outcomes

· understand the role of jails in shaping patterns of inequality

Consistent with the University of Minnesota's Office of Classroom Management for a 10-week, 3-credit course, students 225 minutes of instructional time per week. That time will include asynchronous video lectures, weekly video responses, and module summaries. Additionally, students can expect to spend 450 minutes per week independently reading, thinking, writing, studying, and working on assignments.

This course concerns the social and legal origins of crime control. Students will critically examine criminal justice systems from three interrelated themes: status, criminalization, and social control. Specifically, students will respond to the following questions: What role does social status play in our criminal justice system? Who and what gets criminalized and how does this relate to status? How are social controls stratified across the U.S., and how do they relate to status?

This course concerns the social and legal origins of crime control. Students will critically examine criminal justice systems from three interrelated themes: status, criminalization, and social control. Specifically, students will respond to the following questions: What role does social status play in our criminal justice system? Who and what gets criminalized and how does this relate to status? How are social controls stratified across the U.S., and how do they relate to status?

This course concerns the social and legal origins of crime control. Students will critically examine criminal justice systems from three interrelated themes: status, criminalization, and social control. Specifically, students will respond to the following questions: What role does social status play in our criminal justice system? Who and what gets criminalized and how does this relate to status? How are social controls stratified across the U.S., and how do they relate to status?

This course concerns the social and legal origins of crime control. Students will critically examine criminal justice systems from three interrelated themes: status, criminalization, and social control. Specifically, students will respond to the following questions: What role does social status play in our criminal justice system? Who and what gets criminalized and how does this relate to status? How are social controls stratified across the U.S., and how do they relate to status?

This course concerns the social and legal origins of crime control. Students will critically examine criminal justice systems from three interrelated themes: status, criminalization, and social control. Specifically, students will respond to the following questions: What role does social status play in our criminal justice system? Who and what gets criminalized and how does this relate to status? How are social controls stratified across the U.S., and how do they relate to status?

This course seeks to develop an understanding of patterns of crime and punishment in the United States on the basis of various sociological theories. It is a class in the sociology of crime and punishment, and as such, seeks to develop the students' "sociological imagination" and "critical thinking", itself an overused cliché that ought to be critically thought of.

The course is divided into two parts: The first, Crime,
and the second, Social Control. In the first, we will examine theories which explain crime in general and the exceptionally high crime rates in the U.S. more specifically, with an emphasis on race and space. The second part of the course begins with a short overview of the philosophical debates over punishment, which center on two fundamental questions: Why punish? And how? From the philosophy of punishment we move on to the sociology of punishment, which asks who is being punished, by whom, and for what reasons; such questions will be examined in the context of mass incarceration and the war on drugs, again, with an emphasis on race.

This course by no means attempts to cover all or even most theories about crime and punishment;
rather, it privileges depth over breadth, and focuses on a selection of theories and texts that are fundamental (most), thought-provoking (all) and exciting to read (we hope).