Crime, Punishment, and Inequality: A Sociological Perspective

Transcription

1 Crime, Punishment, and Inequality: A Sociological Perspective Semester: Fall 2017 Course Code: SOC396N/P A388K Time: Wednesdays 4:30-7:30pm Place: CLA Professor: Sarah Brayne sbrayne@utexas.edu Phone: Office: CLA 2.408J Office Hours: Wednesdays 1:30-3:30pm Description The American criminal justice 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 justice system, beginning with deviance and crime commission, through policing, adjudication and sentencing in the courts, mass incarceration and its collateral consequences, community supervision including parole and probation, and concluding with technologically-mediated surveillance throughout broader society. We will examine social inequalities from two angles at each stage: First, how is selection into the criminal justice system a reflection of existing social inequalities in American society? Second, to what extent is the criminal justice system implicated in the reproduction of social inequalities? We will examine the relationship between involvement in the criminal justice system and social inequalities in institutions including but not limited to the labor market, education, politics, healthcare, and civil society. The course concludes by offering directions for law, policy, and future research. Accessibility and Inclusion Statement It is my goal to foster an inclusive learning environment in this class. Students with a documented disability may request appropriate academic accommodations from the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD), (voice) or (video phone). Individuals who request accommodations are responsible for identifying themselves to the professor within the first week of class. For further details, please refer to: or ssd@austin.utexas.edu. For assistance with mental health issues, please contact the Counseling and Mental Health Center (CMHC) at The CMHC Crisis Line is available 24/7 at Academic Honesty Students are expected to be familiar with and adhere to the University of Texas policies regarding academic honesty and integrity: Late Policy Late memos will not be accepted. Late proposals are penalized at one full letter grade per day (i.e., if you submit the assignment one day late, the highest grade you can receive is a B).

2 Course Outline The required reading must be completed before class, as it will form the basis for seminar discussion. Please note that the schedule is subject to change throughout the semester. Week 1: August 30 Introduction No reading Week 2: September 6 Theories of Punishment and Deviance Garland, David Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory. University of Chicago Press. (Selected chapters) Foucault, Michel Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. (Selected chapters) Becker, Howard The Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. The Free Press. (Selected chapters) Rios, Victor Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. New York University Press. (Selected chapters) Week 3: September 13 Crime and Violence Sampson, Robert J., Stephen W. Raudenbush, and Felton Earls Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy. Science 277: Sampson, Robert J. and John H. Laub Crime and Deviance over the Life Course: The Salience of Adult Social Bonds. American Sociological Review 55(5): Papachristos, Andrew V., David M. Hureau, and Anthony A. Braga The Corner and the Crew: The Influence of Geography and Social Networks on Gang Violence. American Sociological Review 78(3): Quillian, Lincoln, and Devah Pager Black Neighbors, Higher Crime? The Role of Racial Stereotypes in Evaluations of Neighborhood Crime. American Journal of Sociology 107(3): Vargas, Robert Wounded City: Violent Turf Wars in a Chicago Barrio. Oxford University Press. (Selected chapters) Week 4: September 20 Crime Exposure and Legal Cynicism Sharkey, Patrick The Acute Effect of Local Homicides on Children s Cognitive Performance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107: Kirk, David and Mauri Matsuda Legal Cynicism, Collective Efficacy, and the Ecology of Arrest. Criminology 49(2): Bell, Monica Situational Trust: How Disadvantaged Mothers Reconceive Legal Cynicism. Law and Society Review 50(2): Jones, Nikki Between Good & Ghetto: African American Girls and Inner-City Violence. Rutgers University Press. (Selected chapters)

3 Week 5: September 27 Policing Part I Van Maanen, John The Asshole, in Policing: A View from the Street. Eds. Peter K. Manning and John Van Maanen: Wilson, James Q. and George L. Kelling Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety. The Atlantic Monthly: Sherman, Lawrence W Targeting, Testing and Tracking Police Services: The Rise of Evidence-Based Policing. Crime and Justice 42(1): Willis, James J., Stephen D. Mastrofski, and David Weisburd Making Sense of COMPSTAT: A Theory-Based Analysis of Organizational Change in Three Police Departments. Law & Society Review 41(1): Week 6: October 4 Policing Part II Stuart, Forrest Down, Out and Under Arrest: Policing and Everyday Life in Skid Row. University of Chicago Press. (Selected chapters) Brayne, Sarah Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing. American Sociological Review 82(5). Gelman, Andrew, Jeffrey Fagan, and Alex Kiss An Analysis of the New York City Police Department s Stop-and-Frisk Policy in the Context of Claims of Racial Bias. Journal of the American Statistical Association 102(479): Beckett, Katherine, Kris Nyrop, Lori Pfingst, and Melissa Bowen Drug Use, Drug Possession Arrests, and the Question of Race: Lessons from Seattle. Social Problems 52(3): Week 7: October 11 Courts: Adjudication and Sentencing Feeley, Malcolm M. and Jonathan Simon The New Penology: Notes on the Emerging Strategy of Corrections and Its Implications. Criminology 30(4). Kohler-Hausmann, Issa Misdemeanor Justice: Control Without Conviction. American Journal of Sociology (119)2: Gonzales Van Cleve, Nicole Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America s Largest Criminal Court. Stanford University Press. (Selected chapters) Espeland, Wendy N. and Berit I. Vannebo Accountability, Quantification, and Law. Annual Review of Law and Social Science 3:

4 Week 8: October 18 Mass Incarceration Pettit, Becky and Bruce Western Mass Imprisonment and the Life Course: Race and Class Inequality in U.S. Incarceration. American Sociological Review 69(2): Muller, Christopher Northward Migration and the Rise of Racial Disparity in American Incarceration, American Journal of Sociology 118(2): Garland, David The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Oxford University Press. (Selected chapters) Goodman, Philip Race in California's Prison Fire Camps for Men: Prison Politics, Space, and the Racialization of Everyday Life. American Journal of Sociology 120(2): Week 9: October 25 Collateral Consequences Wakefield, Sara and Christopher Uggen Incarceration and Stratification. Annual Review of Sociology 36: Pager, Devah The Mark of a Criminal Record. American Journal of Sociology 108(5): Brayne, Sarah Surveillance and System Avoidance: Criminal Justice Contact and Institutional Attachment. American Sociological Review 79(3): Western, Bruce and Christopher Wildeman The Black Family and Mass Incarceration. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 621(1): Comfort, Megan Doing Time Together: Love and Family in the Shadow of the Prison. University of Chicago Press. (Selected chapters) Week 10: November 1 Community Supervision: Parole and Probation Miller, Reuben J "Devolving the Carceral State: Race, Prisoner Reentry, and the Micro-Politics of Urban Poverty Management." Punishment and Society 16(3): Phelps, Michelle Mass Probation: Toward a More Robust Theory of State Variation in Punishment. Punishment and Society 19(1): Leverentz, Andrea The Ex-Prisoner s Dilemma: How Women Negotiate Competing Narratives of Reentry and Desistance. Rutgers University Press. (Selected chapters) Page, Joshua Desperation and Service in the Bail Industry. Contexts 16(2):

5 Week 11: November 8 The Surveillance Society Haggerty, Kevin D. and Richard V. Ericson The Surveillant Assemblage. British Journal of Sociology 51(4): Lyon, David Surveillance as Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk and Digital Discrimination. Routledge. (Introduction and Chapter 1) Thacher, David The Local Role in Homeland Security. Law & Society Review 39(3): Gilliom, John Overseers of the Poor: Surveillance, Resistance, and the Limits of Privacy. University of Chicago Press. (Chapter 1) Week 12: November 15 Big Data and the Law Ferguson, Andrew G Big Data and Predictive Reasonable Suspicion. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 63(2): Joh, Elizabeth. Policing by the Numbers: Big Data and the Fourth Amendment. Washington Law Review 89: Renan, Daphna The Fourth Amendment as Administrative Governance. Stanford Law Review 68(5): Angwin, Julia, Jeff Larson, Surya Mattu, and Lauren Kirchner Machine Bias. ProPublica: Week 13: November 22 No Class Thanksgiving Week 14: November 29 Policy Reform Laub, John Understanding Inequality and the Justice System Response: Charting a New Way Forward. William T. Grant Foundation: Gottschalk, Marie Bring It On: The Future of Penal Reform, the Carceral State, and American Politics. Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law 12(2): Phelps, Michelle Possibilities and Contestation in Twenty-First-Century US Criminal Justice Downsizing. Annual Review of Law and Social Science 12(1): Western, Bruce The Rehabilitation Paradox. The New Yorker: 1-8. Week 15: December 6 Last Class Day Research Proposals Due

6 Assessments and Grading Policy Grades will be assigned based on the following: 1) Final Research Proposal (40%) Students are expected to submit a research proposal in which they analyze a topic of their choice related to inequality and the criminal justice system. Students will tailor their proposals to specific foundations or agencies best suited to their research, but all proposals should include a project overview, research question(s), literature review, hypotheses, methodology (including proposed data, which can be either qualitative or quantitative), intellectual merits, broader impacts, and works cited. The aims of this project are threefold. First, it is intended to encourage students to think critically about the state of knowledge in the field, and offer suggestions for research that would fill important gaps in knowledge. Second, it will provide students an opportunity to synthesize substantive and methodological material covered in class. Finally, students will have prepared a proposal that they can submit to funding agencies in the future if they so choose. 2) Memo and Facilitation (30%) Each student will present and facilitate a discussion on the readings once throughout the semester. The facilitator s role is to pose questions and generate conversation, which involves moving the discussion beyond summarizing the readings into critical analysis and synthetic engagement across readings. Students are required to write and circulate a long memo (5-6 pages) on Canvas 24 hours before the class in which they facilitate discussion. 3) Short Memos (20%) Students are expected to complete a total of ten short memos (2-3 pages) in response to the readings throughout the semester. Students can choose which weeks to complete their memos, but memos must correspond to that week s readings and students can only submit one memo per week. Memos should be submitted on Canvas 24 hours prior to class and are graded for completion (i.e., if students complete 10 memos, they receive the full 20% of their final grade). Late memos are not accepted. 4) Attendance and Participation (10%) Students are expected to attend and participate in every seminar. Participation involves completing the readings in advance, asking questions in class, listening attentively, and engaging in critical discussion.