Crime, Punishment, and Inequality

Catalog description

The American criminal legal system is unprecedented in size and scope by both historical and international comparative standards. This course will trace social inequality through different phases of the criminal legal system, beginning with policing, followed by pretrial, adjudication, sentencing, incarceration and community supervision. We will examine social inequalities from two angles at each phase: First, how is selection into the criminal legal system a reflection of existing social inequalities in American society? Second, to what extent is the criminal legal system implicated in the reproduction of social inequalities? We will examine the relationship between involvement in the criminal legal system and social inequalities in institutions including but not limited to the labor market, education, politics, healthcare, and civil society.