Course description: This course interrogates the ways in which criminal punishment within the criminal justice system has changed over time and has yet remained the same. It reviews the various justifications for punishment—including deterrence, retribution, rehabilitation, incapacitation, and restoration—and examines how this affect punishment in practice. It considers the social, political, cultural, racial, and economic functions that punishment serves. It explores how and why incarceration has dramatically expanded in recent decades in the United States and elsewhere and considers current and future changes in the use of criminal punishment—using a decolonial framework to understand the intricacies of how the founding of this country has used mechanisms of social control to maintain its colonial legacies.
Learning outcomes: Critical thinking skills are crucial to this course. Students will be expected to evaluate theories and the evidence used to support them, as well as their own assumptions and beliefs. By the end of the course, you should be able to:
- Understand how American punishment and its justifications have changed over the past two hundred years
- Differentiate between the different goals or justifications for punishment (retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and restoration)
- Understand the linkage between punishment goals and underlying criminological paradigms and theories
- Assess critically the evidence of the effectiveness of various means of criminal punishment in specific contexts
- Explain why American imprisonment rates are so high in comparison to other countries
- Make considered and informed judgments about the future of American punishment based on an understanding of its past
- Communicate thoughts and arguments effectively
Required Texts: This course is comprised of open educational resource (OER) materials, meaning there is zero textbook cost for this course. The required readings for each week are included in hyperlinks on the syllabus as well as on the course site.
