INEQUITIES AND INCARCERATION.

Catalog description

This course surveys mass incarceration in the U.S. criminal justice system as a racialized and classist system of control. First, this course will contextualize the US criminal justice system, both historically and through global comparisons. Then students will be introduced to four broad content areas: entering the criminal justice system (school-to-prison pipeline and policing), who is detained (demographics and common mental health and substance use issues) and what they experience in detention (including COVID-19 in jails and prisons), experiences and problems encountered when returning citizens reenter society, and trends in criminal justice reform advocacy (including problem-solving courts and advocacy efforts such as Black Lives Matter). Finally, the course considers the social work grand challenge of smart decarceration as a path towards reform specific to social workers. Also offered as SOCW 4371 in the BSW program. Students who take this course at the undergraduate level may not repeat it at the graduate level.