Sociology of Crime and PunishmentTuesday-Thursday, 2:50-4:10pm

SOC 231-01 — PAC 421 — Fall 2018

Instructor: Kerwin KayeEmail: kkaye@wesleyan.eduOffice: PAC 105Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 1-2pm, and by appointment

Class Description

This course begins with a critical overview of the rise of mass incarceration in the U.S. since 1973, while situating the present situation within a broader historical context. Following this, we will review a number of theories of crime that sociologists have put forward, looking also at the “uneven crime decline” that U.S. society has experienced since the mid-1990s. This focus constitutes the first half of the course, and takes us up to the Fall Break. Following the break, the course turns toward a series of distinct topics, all coordinated around themes of gender, race, and class. Media images, ideas femininity in relation to street crime, issues pertaining to domestic violence, and experiences of imprisonment will all be addressed. Lastly, we will examine drug treatment courts, the topic of my own research. While a number of analytic questions regarding criminality and crime control will be raised within the course (e.g., how has crime and crime control changed over time, and how can we best account for these changes?), the question of justice within the criminal justice system will remain a close focus throughout.

Course Materials

Materials are available through a Dropbox link:www.dropbox.com/sh/uv5gfdp9zt8y369/AAAnGaBX3UipS6QtWOpbiO4va?dl=0

Please note that any video within Dropbox that is longer than 15 minutes must be downloaded to your computer before viewing.

Course Requirements

There are five requirements for the class:—attend all classes and be prepared to discuss the assigned readings—five short response papers in relation to the reading (1½-2½ pages each)—a short paper analyzing media depiction of crime (~5 pages)—a mid-term exam (in-class)—a final exam (take home)

Grading

Class attendance and participation: 15%Five short response papers: 5% (each)Short Paper Assignment: 20%Mid-term Exam (in class): 20%Final Exam (take home): 20%

Paper Guidelines

—Response papers must be written on readings that we have not yet discussed, and must be emailed to me by 7pm on the day prior to our discussion. No response papers will be accepted on a given reading after we have discussed it in class. The first response paper is due no later than Monday, September 10th. You select the dates of the other four response papers (two before the midterm, and two after)

—Response papers should address at least 15 pages of reading. If you wish to discuss a reading that is less than 15 pages, you should then discuss two (or more) readings such that you address at least 15 pages of the assigned material

—Response papers should do two things: (1) summarize the author’s argument(2) offer your own opinion/analysis. Response papers will be graded based upon the your

ability to grasp and present an author’s analysis, as well as the depth and insight you display in your own assessment of their work

—All papers should be well organized and proof-read. Please double-space all of your papers, and use one inch margins. Please use Times New Roman (12 point) as your font. If you email me your paper, send it both as an attached file and with the text pasted into the body of the email (in case I have difficulty with the attachment).

—Late papers will suffer as grade deduction as follows: between 15 minutes and 1 hour (3.5%); between 1 hour and 2 hours (5%); between 2 and 24 hours (10%); each additional day follows the same rate of loss (3.5% after the first 15 minutes, up to 10% more each day). Maximum lateness penalty = 50%.

—Plagiarism will not be excused; if in doubt, provide a citation.

Use of Electronic Devices within the Classroom

Use of electronic devices is not allowed. Permission will be granted in exceptional cases.. For an essay which succinctly expresses my thoughts on this policy, see:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/business/laptops-not-during-lecture-or-meeting.html

Special Accommodations / Disability Resources

I am happy to accommodate concerns regarding disabilities. Wesleyan also asks that the following statement be included on all course syllabi:

Wesleyan University is committed to ensuring that all qualified students with disabilities are afforded an equal opportunity to participate in and benefit from its programs and services. To receive accommodations, a student must have a documented disability as defined by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, and provide documentation of the disability. Since accommodations may require early planning and generally are not provided retroactively, please contact Disability Resources as soon as possible.

If you believe that you need accommodations for a disability, please contact Dean Patey in Disability Resources, located in North College, Room 021, or call 860-685-5581 for an appointment to discuss your needs and the process for requesting accommodations.

Schedule Overview

Key Dates

Monday, Sept. 10th (no later than 7pm): First Response Paper dueThursday, October 18th: MidtermTuesday, October 23th: NO CLASS (Fall Break)Thursday, October 25th: Possible guest speaker; Short Paper Assignment DistributedTuesday, November 6th: Election DayThursday, November 22nd: NO CLASS (Thanksgiving Break)Tuesday, November 27th: Short Paper Assignment DueThursday, December 6th: Last Day of classThursday, December 13th, noon: Final exam

Schedule Overview (cont.)Week 1: September 4th and 6th

Introduction and Overview / The Rise of Mass Incarceration

Week 2: September 11th and September 13th Theories of Mass Incarceration

Week 3: September 18th and September 20th

Policing in a Time of Crisis

Week 4: September 25th and September 27th Life Under Mass Incarceration

Week 5: October 2nd and October 4th

The History of “Crime” / Theories of Crime I: Rational Choice

Week 6: October 9th and October 11th

Theories of Crime II: Anomie / Theories of Crime III: Social Control

Week 7: October 16th and October 18th

Madness, Queers, and Crime / Review / Midterm on October 18th

Week 8: October 23rd and October 25th

Death PenaltyNO CLASS October 23rd: Fall BreakPossible guest speaker, October 25th

Short Paper Assignment Distributed, October 25th

Week 9: October 30th and November 1st

Media Representations / Central Park Jogger case

Week 10: November 6th and November 8th

Women as Offenders and as Victims

Week 11: November 13th and November 15th Conceptualizing Domestic Violence

Week 12: November 20th

Imprisonment and Social Control in PrisonsNovember 20th: Short Paper Assignment DueNO CLASS November 22nd: Thanksgiving

Week 13: November 27th and November 29th

Week 14: December 4th and December 6th Alternatives to Mass Incarceration / Drug Courts

Final Exam due Thursday, December 13 th by noon (same time as final exam)

Schedule and Assigned ReadingsWeek 1: Introduction, The Rise of Mass Incarceration

Crowding in California Prisons

Tuesday, September 4th:Introduction to class — no reading

Thursday, September 6th: Muhammad, Khahil. 2010. The Condemnation of Blackness, pp. 1-14 (13 pgs)Flamm, Michael. 2005. Law and Order, pp. 31-8, 51-2, 58-60, 162-3, 173-5 (16

pgs)Camp, Jordan. 2016. Incarcerating the Crisis, pp. 21-42 (22 pgs)

Khahil Muhammad Michael Flamm Jordan Camp

Week 2: War on Drugs and Theories of Mass Incarceration

Michelle Alexander Elizabeth Hinton Marie Gottschalk

Loïc Wacquant David Garland

Tuesday, September 11th:First response paper due no later than Monday, September 10th by 7pmAlexander, Michelle. 2011. “The New Jim Crow,” Ohio State Journal of Criminal

Law, 9(1): 7-26 (20 pgs)Hinton, Elizabeth. 2016. From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime, pp. 307-

32 (26 pgs – focus especially on 321-32)Weaver, Vesla. 2017. “The Untold Story of Mass Incarceration,” Boston Review,

24October: http://bostonreview.net/race-law-justice/vesla-m-weaver-untold-story-mass-incarceration (16 pgs – large font)

Gottschalk, Marie. 2015. “It’s Not Just the Drug War,” Jacobin Magazine, 5March (16 pgs – large font)

Thursday, September 13th:Wacquant, Loïc. 2009 [2001]. “Deadly Symbiosis: When Ghetto and Prison Meet

and Mesh,” Key Readings in Criminology 759-65 (6 pgs)Garland, David. 2013. “Penality and the Penal State,” Criminology, 51(3): 475-

517 (35 pgs)

Week 3: Policing in a Time of Crisis

The Evolution of Police Riot Gear, New York Times, 4December2011

Tuesday, September 18th:Vitale, Alex. 2008. City of Disorder, pp. 1-14, 93-102, 113-43, 183-94 (66 pgs)

Thursday, September 20th:Muñiz, Ana. 2015. Police, Power, and the Production of Racial Boundaries, pp.

33-55 (23 pgs)Skolnick, Jerome. 2010. “A Sketch of the Policeman’s Working Personality,” in

Race, Ethnicity, and Policing, pp. 15-31 (14 pgs)Murch, Donna. 2016. “Paying for Punishment,” Boston Review, 1August:

http://bostonreview.net/editors-picks-us/donna-murch-paying-punishment (11 pgs – large font)

Skim:Ackerman, Spencer. 2015. “The Disappeared: Chicago Police Detain Americans

at Abuse-Ridden ‘Black Site,’” The Guardian, 24February: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site

Balko, Radley. 2016: “The Justice Department’s Stunning Report on the Baltimore Police Department,” Washington Post, 10August: www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/08/10/the-justice-departments-stunning-report-on-the-baltimore-police-department

Berman, Mark and Wesley Lowry. 2015. “The 12 Key Highlights from the DOJ’s Scathing Ferguson Report,” 4March: www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/03/04/the-12-key-highlights-from-the-dojs-scathing-ferguson-report

Makarechi, Kia. 2016. :What the Data Really Says about Police and Racial Bias,” Vanity Fair, 14July: www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/data-police-racial-bias

Week 4: Life Under Mass Incarceration

Harrisburg, PA

Tuesday, September 25th:Fine, Michelle et al. 2003. “‘Anything Can Happen with Police Around’: Urban

Youth Evaluate Strategies of Surveillance in Public Places,” Journal of Social Issues, pp. 141-58 (15 pgs)

Rios, Victor. 2006. “The Hyper-Criminalization of Black and Latino Male Youth in the Era of Mass Incarceration,” Souls, 8(2): 40-54 (13 pgs)

Gowan, Teresa. 2002. “The Nexus: Homelessness and Incarceration in Two American Cities,” Ethnography, 3: 500-34 (30 pgs)

Tang, Eric. 2000. “State Violence, Asian Immigrants, and the ‘Underclass,’” in States of Confinement, pp. 230-44 (14 pgs)

Thursday, September 27th:Goffman, Alice. 2009. “On the Run: Wanted Men in a Philadelphia Ghetto,”

American Sociological Review, 74(June): 339-57 (18 pgs)Rios, Victor. “Review of On the Run by Alice Goffman,” American Journal of

Sociology, 306-8 (3 pgs)McIntosh, Peggy. 1998. “White Privilege, Color and Crime,” from Images of

Color, Images of Crime (skim essay — look more carefully at the list on pages 2-4)

Week 5: The History of “Crime” / Theories of Crime I: Rational Choice

Tuesday, October 2nd:Michalowski, Raymond. 1985. Order, Law, and Crime, pp. 49-84 (32 pgs)Foucault, Michel. 2006 [1975]. “The Body of the Condemned,” from Discipline

and Punish (in Prison Readings), pp. 18-21 (4 pgs)Whitehouse, David. 2014. “The Origins of the Police,” online publication:

https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the-police (18)

Thursday, October 4th:Beccaria, Cesare. 1994 [1764]. “On Crimes and Punishments,” in Classics of

Criminology, Second Edition, pp. 277-86 (8 pgs)Cornish, Derek and Ronald Clarke. 2006 [2001]. “The Rational Choice

Perspective,” in The Essential Criminology Reader, pp. 18-29 (11 pgs)Katz, Jack. 1988. Seductions of Crime, pp. 178-87 (10 pgs)Robinson, Laurie and Jeff Slowikowski. 2011. “Scary and Ineffective,” The

Baltimore Sun, January 31 (2 pgs)Kleiman, Mark. 2010. “The Outpatient Prison,” The American Interest,

(March/April), pp. 45-51 (7 pgs)Kelling, George and Bratton, William. 2012 [1998]. “Declining Crime Rates,” in

Taking Sides, pp. 288-97 (9 pgs)

Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) Michel Foucault Mark Kleiman

Week 6: Theories of Crime II: Anomie / Theories of Crime III: Social Control

Tuesday, October 9th: Durkheim, Emile. 1964 [1893]. The Division of Labor in Society, The Free Press:

New York; pp. 70-80, 87-9 (14 pgs)Shaw, Clifford and Henry McKay. 2011 [1942]. “Juvenile Delinquency and

Urban Areas,” in Criminological Theory: Past to Present, pp. 98-104 (6 pgs)

Anderson, Elijah. 1994. “The Code of the Street,” The Atlantic Monthly (May), pp. 81-94 (8 pgs)

Merton, Robert. 1999 [1938]. “Social Structure and Anomie,” in Criminological Theory: Past to Present, pp. 123-9 (7 pgs)

Bourgois, Philippe. 1996. “In Search of Masculinity,” British Journal of Criminology, 36(3): 412-27 (14 pgs)

Covington, Jeanette. 2010. Crime and Racial Constructions, pp. 137-41 (5 pgs)

Thursday, October 11th:Lemert, Edwin. 2011 [1952]. “Primary and Secondary Deviance,” in

Criminological Theory: Past to Present, pp. 249-52 (4 pgs)Chambliss, William. 1973. “The Saints and the Roughnecks,” in Deviance: The

Interactionist Perspective, pp. 186-94 (9 pgs)Braithwaite, John. 2011 [1989]. “Crime, Shame, and Reintegration,” in

Criminological Theory: Past to Present, pp. 253-61 (9 pgs)Currie, Elliot. 1997. “Crime in Market Society,” in Criminological Theory: Past

to Present, pp. 288-300 (12 pgs)Websdale, Neil. 2001. Policing the Poor, pp. 150-9 (10 pgs). Rios, Victor. 2012. “Stealing a Bag of Potato Chips and Other Crimes of

Resistance,” Contexts, 11(1): 48-53 (5 pgs)Parenti, Christian. 2000. “Crime as Social Control,” Social Justice, 27(3): 43-9 (6

pgs)Kaye, Kerwin. Class summaries regarding Conflict Theory, Critical Criminology,

and Left Realism

Émile Durkheim Robert Merton Elijah Anderson John Braithwaite

Week 7: Madness, Queers, and Crime / Review / Midterm

Tuesday, October 16th: Metzl, Jonathan and Kenneth MacLeish. 2015. “Mental Illness, Mass Shootings,

and the Politics of American Firearms,” American Journal of Public Health, 105(2): 240-9 (8 pgs)

Camp, Jessica and Eileen Trzcinski. 2014. “The Rise of Incarceration Among the Poor with Mental Illnesses: How Neoliberal Policies Contribute,” Handbook on Poverty in the United States, pp. 357-66 (8 pgs)

Ben-Moshe, Liat. 2014. “Prisons as the ‘New Asylums,’” Asylum, (Winter): 16-9 (3 pgs)

Braswell, Harold. 2014. “Why do Police Keep Seeing a Person’s Disability as a Provocation?” Washington Post, 25August: www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/08/25/people-with-mental-disabilities-get-the-worst-and-least-recognized-treatment-from-police

Dillon, Stephen. 2018. Fugitive Life: The Queer Politics of the Prison State, pp. 27-38 (12 pgs)

Ware, Wesley. 2011. “Rounding Up the Homosexuals,” in Captive Genders, pp. 77-84 (7 pgs)

Thursday, October 18th:Midterm Exam

Week 8: Guest Speaker

Tuesday, October 23rd:NO CLASS — Fall break!

Thursday, October 25th:Guest Speaker: Monty Moss, Senior Instructor, Federal Law Enforcement

Training Centers, Glynco GAShort Paper Assignment Distributed

Week 9: Media Representations / Central Park Jogger

Tuesday, October 29th:Cohen, Stanley. 2010 [1972]. “Folk Devils and Moral Panics,” in in Crime and

Media: A Reader, pp. 461-82 (18 pgs)Stabile, Carol. 2006. White Victims, Black Villains, pp. 153-74 (22 pgs)Hall, Stuart et al. 2010 [1978]. “The Social Production of News,” in Crime and

Media: A Reader, pp. 239-50 (10 pgs)Valverde, Mariana. 2006. Law and Order, pp. 115-31 (17 pgs)

Thursday, November 1st:Schanberg, Sydney. 2002. “A Journey Through the Tangled Case of the Central

Park Jogger,” Village Voice, November 19 (9 pgs)Hancock, Lynnell. 2003. “Wolf Pack: The Press and the Central Park Jogger,”

Columbia Journalism Review, 41(5): 38-42 (5 pgs)Smith, Valerie. 1994. “Split Affinities: The Case of Interracial Rape,” in

Theorizing Feminism: Parallel Trends in the Humanities and Social Sciences, pp. 155-70 (14 pgs)

Little, Rivka Gewirtz. 2002. “Rage Before Race: How Feminists Faltered on the Central Park Jogger Case,” Village Voice, October 15 (3 pgs)

Little, Rivka Gewirtz. 2002. “Across 110th Street: Changed Lives Among Central Park Five Family Members,” Village Voice, November 5 (3 pgs)

Characters from Grand Auto Theft III

Week 10: Women as Offenders and as Victims

Tuesday, November 6th: (Election Day)Smart, Carol. 2008. “Criminological Theory: Its Ideology and Implications

Concerning Women,” in Gender and Crime: A Reader, pp. 5-15 (10 pgs)Pollock, Joycelyn, and Sareta Davis. 2005. “The Continuing Myth of the Violent

Female Offender,” Criminal Justice Review, 30(1): 5-29 (22 pgs)Ferraro, Kathleen and Angela Moe. 2003. “Mothering, Crime, and Incarceration,”

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 32(9): 9-40 (29 pgs)Odem, Mary. 1992. “Fallen Women and Thieving Ladies: Historical Approaches

to Women and Crime in the United States” (book review), Law & Social Inquiry, 17(2): 351-61 (11 pgs)

Thursday, November 8th:Esther Madriz. Nothing Bad Happens to Good Girls: Fear of Crime in Women’s

Lives, pp. 10-19, 34-41, 67-93, 147-50 (49 pgs)LaChance, Naomi. 2016. “California Isn’t Sure How to Fix Sexual Assault

Problem without Adding to Mass Incarceration,” The Intercept, 31August: https://theintercept.com/2016/08/31/california-isnt-sure-how-to-fix-sexual-assault-problem-without-adding-to-mass-incarceration/

Week 11: Conceptualizing Domestic Violence

Tuesday, November 13th:Bumiller, Kristen. 2008. In An Abusive State: How Neoliberalism Appropriated

the Feminist Movement Against Sexual Violence, pp. 1-15 (15 pgs)Coker, Donna. 2001. “Crime Control and Feminist Law Reform in Domestic

Violence Law: A Critical Review,” Buffalo Criminal Law Review, 4: 801-60. No need to read footnotes (36 pgs)

Critical Resistance and Incite!. 2016. “Gender Violence and the Prison-Industrial Complex,” in Color of Violence, pp. 223-6 (4 pgs)

Thursday, November 15th:Sokoloff, Natalie, and Ida Dupont. 2005. “Domestic Violence at the Intersections

of Race, Class, and Gender,” Violence Against Women, 11: 38-64 (22 pgs)Koyama, Emi. 2016. “Disloyal to Feminism,” in Color of Violence, pp. 208-22

(15 pgs)Dutton, Mary Ann. 1996. “Critique of the ‘Battered Woman Syndrome,” National

Online Resource Center on Violence Against Women (4 pgs)

Week 12: Drug Courts

Tuesday, November 20th:Kaye, Kerwin. 2013. “Rehabilitating the ‘Drugs Lifestyle’: Criminal Justice,

Social Control, and the Cultivation of Agency,” Ethnography, 14(2): 207-32 (23 pgs)

Short Paper Assignment Due

Thursday, November 22nd:NO CLASS — Thanksgiving

Week 13: Imprisonment and Social Control in Prisons / Solitary Confinement

Tuesday, November 27th:Listen to Ear Hustle podcast of your choosing — response paper due

Monday, November 26th on the episode you selectMarquart, James and Ben Crouch. 1998 [1985]. “Judicial Reform and Prisoner

Control,” in Incarcerating Criminals, pp. 70-81 (11 pgs)Trammell, Rebecca. 2012. Enforcing the Convict Code, pp. 19-40 (22 pgs)Bauer, Shane. 2016. “My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard,” Mother Jones,

41(4), July/August: 18-31, 57-63 (17 pgs)Meronek, Toshio. 2013. “The Invisible Punishment of Prisoners with

Disabilities,” The Nation, 23July: www.thenation.com/article/invisible-punishment-prisoners-disabilities/

Harbin, Ami. 2015. “Prisons and Palliative Politics,” in Death and Other Penalties, pp. 158-73 (16 pgs)

Thursday, November 29th

Kilgore, James. 2015. Understanding Mass Incarceration, pp. 48-51 (3 pgs)Henningsen, Rodney, et al. 2011 [1999]. “Supermax Prisons: Panacea or

Desperation?” in Correctional Contexts, pp. 78-85 (7 pgs)Stickrath, Thomas, and Gregory Bucholtz. 2006 [2003]. “Supermaximum

Security Prisons are Necessary,” in America’s Prisons: Opposing Viewpoints, pp. 89-92 (4 pgs)

Rhodes, Lorna. 2002. “Psychopathy and the Face of Control in Supermax,” Ethnography, 3(4): 442-66 (17 pgs)

Rhodes, Lorna. 2005. “Pathological Effects of the Supermaximum Prison,” American Journal of Public Health, 95(10): 1692-5 (4 pgs)

Abdur’Rahman, Abu Ali. 2015. “Statement on Solitary Confinement,” in Death and Other Penalties, pp. 227-9 (3 pgs)

Reiter, Keramet. 2014, “The Pelican Bay Hunger Strike,” South Atlantic Quarterly, 113(3): 579-611 (32pgs)

Week 14: Open Topic / Restorative and Transformative Justice

Tuesday, December 4th:Open Topic (VOTE!)

Thursday, December 6th:Marshall, Tony. 2009 [1998]. “Restorative Justice: An Overview,” in Key

Readings in Criminology, pp. 719-25 (6 pgs)Morris, Allison. 2009 [2002]. “Critiquing the Critics: A Brief Response to Critics

of Restorative Justice,” in Key Readings in Criminology, pp. 732-7 (5 pgs)Robinson, Paul. 2013. “The Virtues of Restorative Processes, the Vices of

‘Restorative Justice,’” in A Restorative Justice Reader, pp. 384-93 (9 pgs)Okazawa-Rey, Margo and Gwyn Kirk. 2000. “Maximum Security,” Social

Justice, 27(3): 120-32 (11 pgs)Trujillo, Josmar. 2016. “No BackSpace: the Case for Abolishing the Police,”

CityLimits, 16August: http://citylimits.org/2016/08/16/no-backspace-the-case-for-abolishing-the-police/

Davis, Angela. 2003. Are Prisons Obsolete?, pp. 9-21, 105-15 (24 pgs)Lopez, German. 2016. “Riots are Destructive, Dangerous, and Scary — but Can

Lead to Serious Social Reforms,” Vox, 15August: www.vox.com/2015/4/30/8518681/protests-riots-work

Final exam due: Thursday, December 13 th , 12noon