Fall 2019  |  SOC 4161 Section 001: Criminal Law in American Society (20148)

Instructor(s)
Class Component:
Lecture
Credits:
3 Credits
Grading Basis:
Student Option
Instructor Consent:
No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:
In Person Term Based
Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
 
09/03/2019 - 12/11/2019
Wed 02:30PM - 05:00PM
UMTC, West Bank
Hubert H Humphrey Center 25
Enrollment Status:
Open (50 of 52 seats filled)
Also Offered:
Course Catalog Description:
Purposes of criminal law and of principles of criminal liability, justification, and excuse. Applications to law of criminal homicide, sexual assault, drugs, and crimes against property, public order, and morals. prereq: 3101 or 3102 or 3111 or instr consent; soc majors/minors must register A-F
Class Notes:
Click on this link for more detailed course information: http://classinfo.umn.edu/?jbs+SOC4161+Fall2019
Class Description:
Welcome to our interactive criminal law class!

All parts of our class aim to help you develop your own "criminal law imagination" (CLI) By this I refer to your ideal blaming and punishing regime. We spend our Wednesday afternoons together interrogating the following questions that make up your CLI:

1. What's criminal law and what's it good for?
2. Should we punish people only for what they do? or for what they might do? or even sometimes for who they are?
3. What are the justifications and excuses for committing crimes? Topics include defenses of justification (self-defense, defense of home) and defenses of excuse (insanity, age)
4. Criminal homicide
5. Criminal homicide
6. Criminal sexual conduct
7. Immigration crimes
8. Cyber crime

A final word: You'll probably learn some actual criminal law in our interactive journey through the topics in the list. Good for you. But, remember our goal is above all to work on developing your CLI.
Who Should Take This Class?:
If you're an Upper Division undergraduate from all majors and you're interested in becoming a more intelligent consumer of our criminal blaming and punishing regime, then you've found the right class. That regime is a very rough engine of social control, a last resort after families, belief systems, schools, and other non criminal social institutions fail. It's also the most expensive and most invasive instrument to affect human behavior in the digital age of the US version of a constitutional democracy, committed to the the values of human dignity, individual autonomy, equal justice, and social order.
Grading:
10% Class Participation measured mainly by discussion and SRS ("Clicker)" polling
90% Weekly quizzes that cover reading and discussion
Exam Format:
40%, short answer quiz on each week's assigned reading (no notes or books allowed); 20%, analysis of week's assigned cases (take home); 40%, reaction essay based on the day's discussion topic (open book and notes)
Class Format:
15% Lecture
85% Discussion
Workload:
About 35 pages of reading every week. Hey! There are no research papers, reports, or other writing requirements. This is so you have time to read thoroughly and know well the content of the assigned pages
Textbooks:
https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/20148/1199
Past Syllabi:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/syllabi/jbs_SOC4161_Fall2020.docx (Fall 2020)
http://classinfo.umn.edu/syllabi/jbs_SOC4161_Fall2018.docx (Fall 2018)
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
10 April 2019

ClassInfo Links - Fall 2019 Sociology Classes

To link directly to this ClassInfo page from your website or to save it as a bookmark, use:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=SOC&catalog_nbr=4161&term=1199
To see a URL-only list for use in the Faculty Center URL fields, use:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=SOC&catalog_nbr=4161&term=1199&url=1
To see this page output as XML, use:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=SOC&catalog_nbr=4161&term=1199&xml=1
To see this page output as JSON, use:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=SOC&catalog_nbr=4161&term=1199&json=1
To see this page output as CSV, use:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=SOC&catalog_nbr=4161&term=1199&csv=1
Schedule Viewer
8 am
9 am
10 am
11 am
12 pm
1 pm
2 pm
3 pm
4 pm
5 pm
6 pm
7 pm
8 pm
9 pm
10 pm
s
m
t
w
t
f
s
?
Class Title

ClassInfo created and maintained by the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

If you have questions about specific courses, we strongly encourage you to contact the department where the course resides.