Criminal Justice Policy

Catalog description

This course covers the basic policies and controversies in criminal justice in the United States. The course will explore how criminal justice policies get made, why they get made, how well or poorly they work, and what we can do better. The course will examine primarily longstanding areas of policy debate, e.g., illegal drugs, prisons, capital punishments, etc., but we will also pay attention to policy debates in the news. The course will also pay special attention to the intersection of race and social class with our modern criminal justice policies.