Prisons, Profiling, and Policing

Catalog description

This course examines the social and economic functions of prisons in contemporary American society. Students investigate how and why prisons have become the preferred solution to crises of global capitalism, the perceived fracturing of American identity, and radical protest politics over the last several decades. Students examine the proposal, increasingly advocated by the families and communities most affected by crime and mass incarceration, of abolishing the prison system altogether. The prison crisis demands that we take an active position and deal with the ethics of incarceration. Students engage with community groups in Los Angeles and beyond working for prison reform and abolition. Student projects are practical and action-oriented.