Race, Crime and Justice

Catalog description

This course is an exploration of the historical intersection between race, crime, and the juvenile/criminal justice systems, as well as the extent of victimization. This course examines various contemporary issues critical to understanding race and crime through an analysis of policing, courts and corrections in the past and the present, as well as disparities in sentencing and the death penalty. In addition, this course explores existing challenges to the study of race and crime, such as hate/bias crimes, racial profiling, immigration and crime, as well as sentencing disparities, disenfranchisement, and wrongful convictions. Theoretical perspectives on race and crime and the collection of crime data in the United States are compared and contrasted.