CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN LITERATURE:
A TEACHING CURRICULUM
Jayme Anne Powell
B.S., California Baptist University, Riverside, 2007
B.A., California Baptist University, Riverside, 2007
PROJECT
Submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF SCIENCE
in
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
at
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO
FALL
2010
CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN LITERATURE:
A TEACHING CURRICULUM
A Project
by
Jayme Anne Powell
Approved by:
__________________________________, Committee Chair
Sue C. Escobar, J.D., Ph.D.
____________________________
Date
ii
Student: Jayme Anne Powell
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format
manual, and that this project is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for
the Project.
__________________________, Graduate Coordinator
Yvette Farmer, Ph.D.
Division of Criminal Justice
iii
________________
Date
Abstract
of
CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN LITERATURE:
A TEACHING CURRICULUM
by
Jayme Anne Powell
Criminal Justice is a vastly expanding field of study that has found prominence in the
majority of America’s schools of higher learning since its beginning in 1916. Although it
has generally been accepted as an interdisciplinary field of study in recent years, it has
focused primarily on the social sciences. However, one discipline that has not been
readily accepted into criminal justice education is literature. There are currently no
existing programs that teach criminal justice concepts through literature. Using examples
found in many law schools and other disciplines, this curriculum teaches criminal justice
concepts through major works of literature to encourage students to reexamine various
aspects of the criminal justice system.
_______________________, Committee Chair
Sue C. Escobar, J.D., Ph.D.
_______________________
Date
iv
DEDICATION
I dedicate this work to the entire Powell Clan. Through deep intellectual conversations on
Literature, words of encouragement/motivation, boisterous family gatherings, and the multitude
of prayers that you sent out for me, you have been the foundation that has kept me sane
throughout this process. God could not have blessed me with a greater family. Thank you!
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project would not have been possible without the support of several individuals.
First, I wish to thank Dr. Escobar for all your support, encouragement, and suggestions on this
project. Thank you for all your patience, your advice, and most importantly for your love of
Literature. You were truly able to understand my vision for this curriculum and I am so grateful
that I was able to have you as a professor and project advisor.
I would also like to thank my Dad for his amazing proofreading skills. Your corrections
and guidance on my papers throughout the years have shaped me into the writer that I am today.
Thank you for challenging me in my academics, encouraging me to think deeper, instilling in me
a spirit of excellence, and of course thank you, thank you, thank you, for all the coffee. I love
you!
I would also like to thank the members of my cohort who offered their support
throughout my graduate school experience. We have had hours of commiseration, shared
frustration, and celebration, but through these shared experiences we have created a bond that I
hope will last for years. Thank you for your friendship and making graduate school fun.
Finally, thank you Ryan for supporting me and loving me throughout this entire process.
Thank you for believing in me and sustaining me with words of encouragement, or just making
me laugh when I needed it. I love you so much! Now I can finally plan our wedding!!
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Dedication ..................................................................................................................................v
Acknowledgements...................................................................................................................vi
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION ……………..……………………………………….... ……………… 1
Statement of the Problem ............................................................................................ 5
Purpose of the Project .................................................................................................. 7
2. LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................................. 8
History of Law and Literature....................................................................................... 9
James Boyd White’s Legal Imagination ....................................................... 11
Richard Weisberg’s Law and Literature Movement ...................................... 14
Robin West’s Law as Narrative ..................................................................... 15
Richard Posner’s Law and Literature ............................................................ 18
Martha Nussbaum’s Narrative Imagination ................................................... 20
Criminal Justice and Literature ................................................................................... 25
Criminal Justice Education ......................................................................................... 26
The Rise of the Modern University ............................................................................ 28
The Professional School ............................................................................... 30
“Schools” and Disciplines ............................................................................ 33
Police Education ........................................................................................................ 37
August Vollmer’s Police Progressivism ....................................................... 38
Orlando Wilson’s Police Administration ...................................................... 41
The Law Enforcement Education Program ................................................... 42
Integrating the Interdisciplinary with Criminal Justice .............................................. 43
Teaching Literature in Criminal Justice ..................................................................... 46
Hirschel & McNair’s Criminal Justice and Literature Course ...................... 46
Beverly Smith’s Argument for Literature in Criminal Justice ...................... 52
Steven T. Engel ............................................................................................. 57
Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 66
vii
3. PROJECT PROCESS ....................................................................................................... 69
Introduction................................................................................................................. 69
Curriculum Proposal ................................................................................................... 69
Course Content .......................................................................................................... 70
Learning Objectives ...................................................................................... 71
Teaching Methodology ................................................................................. 73
Unit 1: Criminal Justice in Ancient Times ................................................................ 76
Unit 1 Assessment ........................................................................................ 80
Unit 2: The Justice System: Policing, Courts, and Incarceration................................ 81
Unit 2 Assessment ........................................................................................ 84
Unit 3: Criminological Theories/Violent Crimes in Literature .................................. 85
Lesson 1: Homicide ...................................................................................... 85
Lesson 2: Assault and Battery/ Domestic Abuse .......................................... 87
Lesson 3: Rape .............................................................................................. 89
Unit 3 Assessment ........................................................................................ 90
Unit 4: Elements of an Offender ................................................................................. 91
Lesson 1: Race .............................................................................................. 91
Lesson 2: Gender/Mental Status ................................................................... 92
Lesson 3: Juvenile Delinquency ................................................................... 95
Unit 4 Assessment ........................................................................................ 99
Unit 5: Special Victims .............................................................................................. .99
Lesson 1: Animal Abuse ............................................................................. 100
Lesson 2: Elder Abuse ................................................................................ 101
Unit 5 Assessment ...................................................................................... 103
Unit 6: Crimes of the Future: Where are we heading? ............................................ 103
Unit 6 Assessment ...................................................................................... 104
Concluding the Course............................................................................................. 105
Course Syllabus ....................................................................................................... 106
Lesson Plan Design .................................................................................................. 106
4. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 107
Appendices............................................................................................................................. 109
viii
Appendix A. Syllabus……………………………………………………………………….110
Appendix B. Lesson Plans…………………………………………………………………..118
References ............................................................................................................................. 177
ix
1
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
Purpose of the Study
Criminal justice education is a vastly expanding field of study that has found
prominence in the majority of America’s schools of higher learning, growing from 55
baccalaureate programs in criminal justice in 1970, to an astounding 589 programs in
1980 (Morn, 1995, p. 161). August Vollmer was the first to create a relationship between
a police academy and university classes to teach officers at the University of California,
Berkeley in 1916 (Morn, 1995). The Rockefeller foundation, in the 1930s, granted the
Public Administration and Political Science departments at UC Berkeley funds to
develop their police studies program which included classes on juvenile cases, principles
and rules of evidence, rights and duties of witnesses, and knowledge of state laws (Morn,
1995, p. 33-34). Criminal Justice and police education again expanded with Orlando
Wilson’s work in 1936 at the Municipal University of Wichita with the addition of
classes in criminal law, evidence, investigation, identification, patrol, traffic, and police
administration (Morn, 1995, p. 36). Despite the growth of the policing school, it was still
under the Political Science department at the University, and Wilson strongly argued that
until it was its own separate department, the study of criminal justice and criminology
would not be taken seriously.
By 1950, the School of Criminology at UC Berkley offered majors on law
enforcement, criminalistics, and corrections. The core curriculum of first year students
included classes on criminal investigation, police administration, physical evidence, legal
2
medicine, and legal relations, while second year students were required to take police
planning, traffic engineering, detection of deception, and crime and delinquency.
However, these early programs were still focused primarily on law enforcement and
policing. It wasn’t until the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the enactment of the Law
Enforcement Education Program (LEEP), that the curriculum truly started to become
interdisciplinary (adding classes on the sociology/psychology of crime), and moved from
being simply a vocational training program, to a broader liberal arts education (Sigler &
Dudeck, 1985, p. 165). This shift was very evident at criminal justice conferences in
Louisville (1982) and San Antonio (1983) where their meetings had “upwards of sixteen
different panels devoted to political science, anthropology, history, economics,
philosophy, law, and public policy” (Morn, 1995, p. 170). It was clear from the
conferences that the field of criminal justice was truly becoming interdisciplinary.
Although criminal justice has generally been accepted as an interdisciplinary field
of study in recent years, it has focused primarily on the social sciences. Predominant
disciplines in criminal justice education and research have been psychology, sociology,
criminology, public administration, and law (Morn, 1995, p. 170; Smith, 1987, p. 137).
Recently, additional disciplines have been offered with limited acceptance to this field
including anthropology, philosophy, and even history. However, one discipline that has
not been readily accepted into criminal justice education is literature.
The addition of literature to criminal justice education is not wholly without
precedence. Classes can be found in the majority of other disciplines that teach
“literature” courses. Philosophy, History, Mathematics, Business, Science, Religion,
3
Psychology, and even Health Professions have all included courses that teach core
concepts through literature. The majority of law schools across the U.S. offer law and
literature courses, or something akin. Several leading legal scholars, including James
White (1973), Benjamin Cardozo (1925), and John Wigmore (1922), have argued the
importance of including literature in the curriculum of law schools. There are several
shared interests that make the study of literature a valuable, if not necessary, component
of law school education.
The study of literature in law schools assists lawyers to become better
professionals. In everyday work, the lawyer deals with questions of narrative perspective
(who is telling the story and how it is being told) that are best addressed in novels. The
best way to foster narrative perspective is through the study of literature. Robert Cover
argues that legal doctrine requires “broader cultural narratives” to give the law meaning,
and that storytelling plays a key role in shaping law (as cited in Crane, 1999, para. 3).
Narrative is crucial in a legal case. For example, when examining the narrative of a case
of a woman who is on trial for killing her abusive husband, one can observe how both the
prosecution and defense depends crucially on the types of narratives that are included or
excluded within the trial, including the larger cultural perspectives about marriage and
women’s roles that may influence the judge and jury. To experience the same type of
narrative situation, one might read Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers,” which depicts
a group of rural women who deduce the details of a murder in which a woman has killed
her abusive husband. They deduce clues left among the “trifles” in the woman’s kitchen,
and the women outsmart their husbands (who are at the farmhouse to collect evidence)
4
and thus prevent the wife from being convicted of the crime. This story not only offers a
female sympathetic view of the crime, but also a male perspective on trying to determine
how the husband truly died.
The inclusion of literature in law studies, and indeed in other professions as well,
is also beneficial in helping students to learn how to write clearly and persuasively. The
study of literature helps foster a mastery of language and techniques that will help law
professionals to practice their vocation in a more professional manner (Leventhal, 1979).
The greatest tool to any lawyer, judge, or criminal justice practitioner, is not their gun or
their gavel, but rather their pen. The ability to communicate clearly and precisely is
important in any profession, but even more so in professions where the narrative of
another’s story is so imperative to assure the enactment of justice.
Literature is also an important tool through which students foster an awareness of
moral values and the ability to engage in “perspective-taking.” As Aristotle once said,
literary art is “more philosophical” and shows us “things such as might happen in human
life” (as cited in Nussbaum, 1995, p. 5). Literature is unique because it focuses on the
possible and invites readers to become introspective; to oftentimes question conventional
pieties which may enact painful confrontation with one’s own thoughts and intentions
(Nussbaum, 1995, p. 5). Literature’s ability to encourage “perspective-taking” from its
readers not only fosters moral awareness but also encourages empathy that helps leaders
to make decisions that affect human beings. If lawyers and criminal justice students are to
truly be public servants, they must feel a connection with the entire public, and this
oftentimes requires them to put themselves in the shoes of others (Ferguson & Musheno,
5
2000). As Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird said, “You never really understand a
person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin
and walk around in it” (Lee, 1960, p. 30).
Statement of the Problem
Certainly, undergraduates studying criminal justice would also benefit from these
insights into moral values and “perspective-taking” from which law students already
benefit. By perspective taking, students would better understand the impact that the
criminal justice system has on people’s lives as well as to understand all the individuals
involved within the system. Indeed, it can be argued that a humanistic, literature based
education is a crucial component for criminal justice education. Teaching criminal justice
concepts through literature will assist students in the development of practical wisdom.
According to Aristotle, the development of practical wisdom allows us to apply general
principles to universal norms in incongruent circumstances (Aristotle, trans. 1962, sec.
1142a, line 13-14). The development of practical wisdom in criminal justice students
would help students to deliberate and make difficult judgments in situations where there
is a great deal of discretion regarding their professional behavior. It is important for
criminal justice professionals to understand the laws that define permitted and prohibited
behavior, but it is equally important to teach them how to make tough decisions in
situations where simply knowing the rules is not enough.
A search of the criminal justice curriculum offered to students from major
universities throughout America and other countries was performed. Currently, there are
no existing programs that teach concepts of criminal justice through works of literature.
6
However, there were a few experimental classes in the 1980s by Hirschel & McNair
(1982), Beverly Smith (1987), and even more recently with Steven Engel (2003) that
sought to broaden criminal justice education by integrating literature. Despite the success
of these programs, universities are still hesitant to combine criminal justice education
with the humanities or literature. However, there are a few classes offered in universities
(such as the Literature of Crime and Punishment class at John Jay College in New York,
or the Trials, Crime and Punishment in Literature and Film class offered at Georgetown
University) that examine crime and punishment in literature, justice in literature, and
even the examination of crime and culture through film, music or literature. All of these
courses are offered through English departments of universities and are literature focused
rather than focused on criminal justice concepts through literature. If other disciplines
have accepted the need for and integrated courses that utilize literature to teach concepts
of their discipline, clearly criminal justice would benefit as well.
This curriculum is designed to provide students with the opportunity to better
understand the impact of the criminal justice system on people’s lives, and to help
enhance students’ critical thinking by offering a humanities-based view of criminal
justice through the examination of major works of literature from a criminal justice
standpoint. The analysis of the impact of real life crime on crime in literature will also be
an emphasis in this seminar. This class is designed to be instructed at schools of higher
learning (community college/universities) as an elective for criminal justice students and
as a cross-referenced class for English.
7
Purpose of the Project
The purpose of this project is to introduce a new type of curriculum that will
encourage development of practical wisdom and allow students of criminal justice to
develop the ability to deliberate and make judgments, and enhance their critical thinking
skills, by imagining and seeing how different rules and procedures affect people in
different circumstances when they deal with the criminal justice system. This class will
ultimately benefit not only students studying to become professionals in the criminal
justice system, but students of English as well.
8
Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
The addition of literary studies in criminal justice education is not without
precedent. Literature already has an important place within law schools, and several
leading legal scholars, such as Wigmore (1922), Cardozo (1925), White (1973), West
(1985), and Weisberg (2009), have staunchly supported its importance. The concept that
literature plays a vital role in shaping a society’s jurisprudence has had a long history.
The Greek philosopher Plato recognized a relationship between law and literature more
than two thousand years ago, writing, “surely a society’s lawbook should, in right and
reason, prove, when we open it, far the best and finest work of its whole literature; other
men’s compositions should either conform to it, or, if they strike a different note, excite
our contempt” (Plato, 1961, sec. 858e-59a). Plato viewed literature as a tool in which the
law would be upheld and clearly represented. In addition, Plato also viewed literature as a
teaching tool to foster an awareness of moral values when the literature deviated from a
“society’s lawbook.” For example, the anger that a reader feels when reading Franz
Kafka’s The Trial, as Joseph K. is accused of a crime, then forced through a legal system
that is unfair and does not explain what his crime is, is due to the story’s deviation from
“society’s lawbook.” Plato’s works and views were taught as general education, and also
to most professionals until following the end of the U.S. Civil War when law began to be
seen as less a humanity and more of a science (Schweber, 1999).
9
History of Law and Literature
In 1908, John Henry Wigmore revisited the connection between law and
literature. A professor and Dean of Northwestern Law School from 1901 to 1934,
Wigmore was a pioneer in the field of “law and literature.” While he was a fervent
partisan of the case method, Wigmore perceived the limits of solely using case studies in
teaching the law. In Wigmore’s opinion, “the case method does not satisfy every duty of
the legal educator and should not be considered the unique teaching method” (as cited in
Weisberg, 2009, p. 3). Wigmore was a firm believer that lawyers and judges needed to
read novels throughout their professional careers in order to understand human nature. In
his 1908 essay in the Illinois Law Review, Wigmore stated, “the lawyer must know
human nature” and “for this learning . . . he must go to fiction, which is the gallery of
life’s portraits” (p. 31). Following this belief, Wigmore (1922) created a list of one
hundred legal novels which he believed lawyers should read as a part of their education
to learn from the great novelists of the past (p. 26). Wigmore broke this list into four
categories: novels describing trial scenes; novels depicting the typical traits of a lawyer or
judge, or the ways of a professional life; novels in which the methods of the law in the
prosecution and the punishment of crime is delineated; and novels in which some point of
law affects the rights or the conduct of the personages within the plot. This original list of
novels, which includes famous works such as Les Miserables, Count of Monte Cristo, and
Tale of Two Cities, is still being used today as the main source for novels used in law and
literature classes offered in law schools across the U.S.
10
In 1925 Benjamin Cardozo contributed to the new field of Law and Literature by
expanding the study of not just literature having law subjects that would be helpful in the
study of law, but by arguing a “literature as law” point of view. Cardozo argued that law
students and professionals could learn from literature how to write clearly and
persuasively. In this way, where Wigmore wanted lawyers to read well, Cardozo wanted
them to write well. However, Cardozo also believed that each of us brings to the world an
“informed intuition” about people, events, and texts that helps and interprets works of
literature. Thus, when reading case law, or even a briefing, the lawyer, judge, or student
will interpret the writing based on their “informed intuition,” which is why it is so
important to teach students how to not only write clearly and persuasively, but how to
interpret texts as well.
Despite the extensive and ground breaking work by Wigmore and Cardozo, Law
and Literature curriculum and studies remained relatively ignored throughout the United
States until after the 1960s when law studies began to move away from being a wholly
scientific field of study and began to include other disciplines including humanities. The
addition of “law and” classes helped to pave the way for adding literary studies as a part
of typical law school education. According to Bollinger (2007), “In the 1960s, the view
that law could benefit by integrating the knowledge and perspectives of other fields had
gained a solid hold, especially within the legal academy” (p. 1387). Several studies were
integrated with legal study during this time including economics, psychology, sociology,
political science, and anthropology, among many others. However, while deepening the
understanding of the law through the addition of these other perspectives, these
11
disciplines also fractured the overall understanding of the law as well by failing to focus
on language, intention, and meaning that is so crucial in truly understanding law in a
society.
James Boyd White’s Legal Imagination
The contemporary law and literature movement began with James White’s
publication of The Legal Imagination (1973). In this book, White argued that law would
best be understood not as a social science, but rather as an art. Indeed, White argued that
articulating justice requires a combining act of imagination that draws on the precedents
of fiction, poetry, drama, as well as case and code (Crane, 1999). In his book, White
challenged lawyers, judges, and students of law to develop the compassionate or
“humane” dimension that, in White’s opinion, had been driven out by an emphasis on
technical training and legal positivism. Whites’ emphasis on the “humane dimension,” or
ethics, set the tone for American Law and Literature scholarship, and the preferred
teaching tool to accomplish this ethical teaching was literature. Scholars such as White,
Weisberg, and Robin West all turned to literature “as the privileged means to restore
humanity to the lawyers and hence greater justice to the community” (Olson & Kayman,
2007, p. 2). Indeed, White grandly stated that what we should seek from the law and
literature movement is “the perpetual affirmation of the individual mind as it seeks
community with others” (as cited in Posner, 1988, p. 75). In essence, what White was
stating was that through literature a judge or lawyer can become connected to the
community to which they ultimately serve. In Whites’ (1994) later essays, he made the
argument that the language within the best texts had the unique capability of creating an
12
ethical community that nurtures responses in individuals towards justice. Indeed, White
believed that legal discourse failed to arouse the same interest in the humane dimension
that literary works accomplished so easily.
James Boyd White was also the first to analyze and argue against the economic
analysis and economic teaching of the law that had become so prominent in the 1960s.
The “law and economics” movement was the most prominent descendant of the social
science school of policy discourse. This movement viewed the law as instrumental, and
looked to economics to resolve questions about the ultimate ends that the law pursued, as
well as the means of achieving those ends (Dellapenna & Farrell, 1991, p. 47). In
addition, the “law and economics” movement believed that the “true rules” of the
common law, when correctly read, are nothing but intuitive economics (White, 1990).
This “economic” view of the law was widely accepted and promoted during this time,
and indeed still remains to be a prominent study in law schools today. However, White
argued that an economics focus on law removes any significant sense of community in
three ways: by reducing individual action to a rational calculation of “self-interest,” by
denying collective value or action, and by rejecting the legitimacy of any extension of
benefits to those who are unwilling (or unable) to pay for them (White, 1990). White’s
main concern with the “economics and law” perspective was that this perspective would
ultimately reduce all institutions, and all human production, to the cold languages of the
economic market. White believed that the judicial opinion, and law in general, would be
“more accurately and richly understood if it were seen not as a bureaucratic expression of
end-means rationality,” but as an expression by an individual mind or a group of
13
individuals minds deciding a case as well as they can to decide what it would mean to the
language of the culture (White, 1985, p. 41). James Boyd White truly believed that law
would best be understood through a literary, not economic, point of view.
A main argument that White made was that knowledge of rules and understanding
conceptual relations is important, but a lawyer’s greatest tool is the same as a writer’s; the
knowledge of people and how to communicate. White (1973) wrote, “The activities in
which a lawyer is given to excel nearly cover the whole range of human experience, from
the exercise of pure logic to sensitivity to the emotional qualities of a human
relationship” (p. xxiv). Law schools before White’s work in the 1970s focused mainly on
teaching their students detailed procedures on how to treat problems, not make mistakes,
and to do things the way they had been done before. In essence, law schools were not
necessarily giving their students an education, but were teaching their students a trade
(White, 1973). This focus on solely teaching the trade and not integrating “perspective
taking” training deprived law students from an education that would produce professional
and thoughtful leaders capable of critical thinking and empathy. As Steven Engel (2003)
explained, “an education for professional leadership should assist us in the development
of our ability to make judgments, not simply teach us the rules and regulations to which
we must adhere” (p. 346). Thus, the inclusion of literature to teach law concepts would
result in law professionals with greater capabilities to make and articulate ethical and
moral judgments.
14
Richard Weisberg’s Law and Literature Movement
Richard Weisberg was another key figure in the modern law and literature
movement and the only other law and literature scholar besides White during the 1970s.
Weisberg agreed with White’s arguments, and believed that the inclusion of literature to
teach law concepts would help law professionals gain a better perspective regarding
everyday occurrences of the law, as well as an enhanced appreciation of the types of
people that lawyers work with throughout their careers, and about whom judges render
their decisions. Weisberg agreed with White that the technical training of lawyers was not
training them in “perspective taking” that was so crucial to the education of professional
leaders. Weisberg (2009) stated that “literature (fiction works in general) open up
alternative perspectives to professionals whose technical training may have inadvertently
or deliberately divorced them from everyday perspectives” (p. 4). Indeed, the ultimate
goal of reading fiction, in Weisberg’s perspective, was to significantly improve lawyerclient understanding, interpretation of the texts of law, and the art of professional writing.
In 1976, though James Boyd White and Richard Weisberg had made steps in
focusing on a law and literature interdisciplinary pedagogy in law schools, John
Wigmore’s passion for literature in law professionals and Benjamin Cardozo’s insistence
on strong writing skills through the study of literature, were still missing. Weisberg
recognized this deficiency and revisited John Wigmore’s list of Legal Novels in a hope to
fulfill both of these legal scholars’ ultimate goal of the inclusion of literature in law
studies. Weisberg’s updated list of legal novels removed some authors from Wigmore’s
list who had not stood the test of time, and replaced several of the original nineteenth-
15
century fiction with more contemporary authors’ works such as Herman Melville’s Billy
Budd, Sailor, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Franz Kafka’s The Trial, and
Albert Camus’ The Fall. In addition, Weisberg included theatrical works, such as
Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, and King Lear, on the updated list of Legal
Novels. Weisberg also altered Wigmore’s original taxonomy of four separate categories
of legal fiction. The new grouping of texts were: first, a grouping of texts that involved
great trial scenes or strong representations of the trial process; second, works where
lawyers were the central protagonists; third, works where statutes played a central
structuring role in the plot; and the fourth and final category involved fiction that tested
the relationship of the individual to the law i.e., Josef K. in Kafka’s The Trial (Weisberg,
2009).
Richard Weisberg’s revised list revitalized the “law and literature” movement and
ultimately set in motion a “canon” of books and articles, between 1976 and 1987,
dedicated to theorizing the special nature and relation between law and literature. There
were several emerging stories that were discussed incessantly in the movement, including
Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor; Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice; Dickens’ Bleak
House and Great Expectations; and several works by Franz Kafka. With the discussion of
these works, other scholars in the field of “law and literature” finally joined both the
discussion and “law and literature” movement.
Robin West’s Law as Narrative
In 1985, Robin West joined the “law and literature” debate with her article in the
Harvard Law Review, Authority, Autonomy, and Choice: The role of consent in the moral
16
and political vision of Franz Kafka and Richard Posner. This article started a major
discussion in law review journals and an outpouring of lead articles and symposia on the
subject of law and literature, where earlier the subject had been sparsely represented in
peer-reviewed journals (Koffler, 1989). In West’s article, she used the work of Franz
Kafka, most popularly known for his novel The Trial, to expose fallacies in Richard
Posner’s economic theories. West argued that Posner’s concept of humans as “rational
wealth maximizers” was simply a fanciful half-truth and a “corrosive fiction” (as cited in
Koffler, 1989, p. 1381). In West’s opinion, Posner’s defense of wealth-maximization
rested on an inadequate picture of human nature. Posner’s hypothetical legal actors that
he used to support his “law and economics” theory “expressly, impliedly, and
hypothetically” consented to legal changes and authority because they believed that it
would improve their own welfare, whereas Kafka’s protagonists within his novels
consented to legal authority and laws because of an impulse to legitimate the will of an
authority (West, 1985, p. 425). The difference between the two types of characters, in
West’s opinion, is that Posner believes that all humans calculate all the time, while in
reality, humans are more similar to Kafka’s characters in his novels that simply
acquiesce, obey, or submit, and only sometimes calculate. When discussing Kafka’s
characters, West asserted, “obedience to legal rules to which we would have consented
relieves us of the task of evaluating the morality and prudence of our actions” (p. 424).
This comment displays how Kafka’s characters, by consenting to authority, were able to
accept the morality and prudence set by legal institutions, while relieving the burden of
17
having to decide their own views of morality and prudence. For West, Kafka’s fiction
provides us a clear view of a horrifying world in which consent legitimates everything.
While Robin West is most popularly known for her critique of Posner’s “law and
economics” arguments, she was also a large contributor to the “law as narrative” point of
view. In this narrative approach, attention is given to the way that narrative conveys
values, and more specifically how law can be seen as a form of story-telling. Thus, she
effectively united the concepts of “law in literature” and “law as literature” into the
global concept of “law and literature.” Robin West was a pioneer in this field when she
connected the main schools of legal theory with a typology derived from Herman
Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism (an overall view of the scope, theory, principles,
and techniques of literary criticism) (West, 1985b). West argued that the bond between
law and literature consisted of a narrative component that every theory of law has, and
that the law can be analyzed in a way that is similar to the methods used in literary
theory. West’s view of “law and literature” is that literature serves as a medium between
what we think of as reality and facts within our own conceptual frameworks, and the
actual content of the literature we are reading. Following this belief, West did not classify
literature as either ‘law as literature’ or ‘law in literature,’ but rather offered three
classifications for literature: examination of the links and nexus between legal criticism
and literary criticism; examination of legal themes within literary works, and reference to
legal texts as literature (as cited in Almog, 2007, p. 758).
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Richard Posner’s Law and Literature
Richard Posner, a staunch supporter of the “law and economics” movement,
joined the “law and literature” discussion in 1986 with his responses to Robin West’s
article critiquing the “law and economics” movement, as well as to his own work, and
also with his response to Weisberg’s article on Billy Budd, Sailor in 1988, and the first
publication of his book Law and Literature: A Misunderstood Relation. Posner was a
staunch supporter of the “law and economics” movement and was very critical of the
“law and literature” movement. With West’s article suggesting that Posner’s economic
theory of humans being “rational wealth maximizers” was a “fanciful half-truth,” Posner
was able to use West’s criticism to attack the “law and literature” movement (Koffler,
1989, p. 1376). Posner’s book developed from a series of law review articles published in
the Virginia Law Review entitled Law and Literature: A Relation Reargued in which he
argued that the interpretation of legal texts and the interpretation of literature are so
dissimilar that it logically follows the study of one would have little to contribute to the
study of the other (as cited in Koffler, 1989). Posner believed that legal texts are meant to
be interpreted according to the intention of the author; for example, the Constitution
should be read with the original intentions of the framers in mind. In comparison, Posner
felt that literary language is inherently ambiguous, and thus requires the reader to merely
assign a meaning to the words that are written. In essence, literary texts are brimming
with deliberate enigmas that demand a freedom of interpretation that the law and legal
texts do not allow (Posner, 1988).
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Posner’s leading theme in both his essays and his book was the response to what
he felt was the misguided trends in law and literature. The overall lesson of Posner’s
book is that literary theory and literature in general had been “contorted to make literature
seem relevant to law, and law . . . contorted to make it seem continuous with literature”
(Posner, 1988 p. 13). Within his book, Posner repeatedly singled out as enemies those
lawyers (such as Richard Weisberg and Robin West) whose interpretations of literature,
in Posner’s opinion, were only “disfigure [ings] of great literary texts” (pg. 180).
However, this does not mean that Posner was wholly against the reading of literature by
lawyers. Posner believed that the reading and contemplation of literature by lawyers
would create broad vistas of social significance, although he warned that lawyers should
be cautious of using the same literature tendentiously (as cited in Koffler, 1989).
In Posner’s opinion, he believed that there should be a distinction between
literary texts and legal texts, as well as a distinction between literary texts as legal texts.
Within the second half of his book, which he entitled, “Law as a Form of Literature,”
Posner turned his attention to the addition of literary interpretive methods within the law,
and the controversial topic of deconstruction as a means of decomposing compositions
and legal writings. It was Posner’s belief that a deconstructionist reading of legal writings
created false readings of the texts due to an individual’s interpretation, and instead argued
that legal texts demand an intentionalist reading (as cited in Koffler, 1989, p. 1378). The
difference between these two types of readings is that an intentionalist reading of a legal
text or constitution is read through the lens of “how the legislators would probably have
answered [the] question of statutory interpretation if it had occurred to them” (Posner, p.
20
218). A deconstructionist reading, on the other hand, reads a text for its underlying
meaning and is interested in a text’s signifiers rather than just signifieds. For example, a
deconstructionist judge might argue that the provision in Article II of the Constitution
that you must be at least thirty-five years old to be President of the United States could
merely mean that you must possess the maturity of an average thirty-five-year-old
(Posner, 1988, p. 214). It is Posner’s belief that this type of deconstructionist reading,
commonly used by “law and literature” proponents Richard Weisberg and Robin West,
purposefully creates a partisan view of a text that ultimately disfigures great literary texts.
Posner’s hermeneutics favored a literal reading approach to literature. He saw
language as a neutral vehicle for the communication of information and facts that make
up this world. However, despite the fact that Posner was such a strong dissenter of the
“law and literature” movement, his book Law and Literature: A misunderstood relation is
one of law and literature’s best-known texts and is widely used as the standard textbook
in law and literature courses across the U.S. Despite the fact that Posner adamantly and
outspokenly opposed the “law and literature” movement, he eventually saw virtue in
lawyers reading literature and changed his view in 1990 to become a conservative
supporter of the “law and literature” movement.
Martha Nussbaum’s Narrative Imagination
Finally, a discussion of the key players of the “law and literature” movement
would not be complete without looking at Martha Nussbaum’s Poetic Justice (1995).
Martha Nussbaum is an American philosopher who has taught extensively on the subjects
of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy, and ethics. Additionally,
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she has been awarded honorary degrees from thirty-seven colleges and universities in the
U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia (University of Chicago, 2010). Nussbaum has been very
influential in her discourses on law and ethics, and, despite not holding a law degree,
currently holds the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics chair
at the University of Chicago. Nussbaum is a strong supporter of the argument that
literature teaches lawyers and judges important moral lessons that enhance their ability to
perform their jobs more professionally, and thus better deal with people that come into
contact with the justice system. Nussbaum argued that in today’s political life we most
often lack the capacity to see one another as fully human rather than simply “dreams or
dots” (Nussbaum, 1995, p. xiii). This inability to see one another as fully human and to
give each other the sympathy needed is aided and abetted by, in Nussbaum’s opinion, an
excessive reliance on the technical ways of modeling human behavior, specifically on the
focus of economic utilitarianism. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote that a study
of Aristotle could show us that “life is painting a picture, not doing a sum” (as cited in
Nussbaum, 1995, p. xix). Indeed, Nussbaum confronts the “law and economics”
movement and the idea that “simple arithmetic” can solve any human problem (even
going so far as to dedicate her book Poetic Justice to Richard Posner) by fully advocating
that the humanities should be incorporated into law school curricula in order to truly
make it a liberal education (Engel, 2003).
Nussbaum (1997) identifies one of the key aspects of a liberal education as the
development of a narrative imagination. This narrative imagination helps to foster
empathy for others who are truly different from oneself. In Nussbaum’s (1997)
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Cultivating Humanity, she justifies the purpose of literature in cultivating a narrative
imagination by saying, “the great contribution literature has to make to the life of the
citizen is its ability to wrest from our frequently obtuse and blunted imaginations an
acknowledgement of those who are other than ourselves, both in concrete circumstances
and even in thought and emotion” (p. 111-112). Cultivating a literary imagination is
important because it opens our eyes to the plights of others, and promotes habits of the
mind that lead toward social equality and the dismantling of stereotypes that promote
group hatred (Nussbaum, 1997). The reading of literature by lawyers, judges, and other
similar professionals provides a critical “school for moral sentiments,” and it is these
same sentiments that Nussbaum believes creates the best judges. Nussbaum (1990) truly
believed that “the qualities of sympathetic imagination that a reader brings to a novel
exemplify the traits essential for excellence in judging” (p. 236-41).
Narrative imagination is also important in its ability to cultivate practical wisdom,
which requires us to apply general principles to universal norms in conflicting situations.
The development of practical wisdom allows individuals to deliberate and make
judgments about how to act in circumstances where there is no clearly defined path or
rules to follow. Nussbaum (1995) justifies the teaching of novels to law students by
pointing out that the novel creates a style of ethical reasoning that is context-specific “in
which we get potentially universalizable concrete prescriptions by bringing a general idea
of human flourishing to bear on a concrete situation which we are invited to enter through
the imagination” (p. 8). Students of law will learn from literature how rules and
23
procedures can affect different people in different circumstances, and apply it to real life
circumstances.
An important question Nussbaum addresses in her book Poetic Justice is why
novels, and not history or biographies, symphonies or films? Nussbaum answers this
question by citing Aristotle who said that literary art is “more philosophical” than history
because history only shows us things that have happened, while works of literary art can
show us “things such as might happen” in a human life (as cited in Nussbaum, 1995, p.
5). Unlike most historical works, literary works invite the reader to wonder about
themselves, place themselves in the situations of many different types of people, and to
take on their experiences. Thus, the reader’s emotions and imaginative activity are much
higher than when simply reading a history or biography. This is not to say that historical
and biographical works do not have merit, for surely they provide empirical information
that is essential in law school or any other education. Nussbaum also argues that some
histories can arouse imaginative activity if they are written in an inviting narrative style.
An example of this type of history could be Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, which is
considered its own unique genre of non-fiction/fiction. Capote’s story is not simply the
historical facts of a gruesome murder case, but a narrative of the lives of the individuals
that were involved. Capote was able to turn real people into characters in his book;
characters with which the reader was able to identify more easily, and truly step into their
shoes. It is through the format of literature that this was possible.
Martha Nussbaum truly believed that unless individuals could come to understand
one another in this diverse world, they would have no hope of respecting one another’s
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rights. Literature and stories depict the lives of others whose persona one may come into
contact with during one’s life, both in a professional and personal manner. By reading
about these individuals, one can gain a view of life in a concrete setting and better
understand individuals whom one may not have met on a normal basis (Engel, 2003, p.
348). To feel connected to others one truly needs to have an understanding of their lives,
and experience what they have experienced. As Nussbaum 1995 said, “the ability to
imagine vividly, and then to assess judicially, another person’s pain . . . is a powerful way
of learning what the human facts are and of acquiring a motivation to alter them” (p. 91).
This is the true meaning behind the statement made by Atticus Finch in To Kill a
Mockingbird when he states, “You never really understand a person until you consider
things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it”
(Lee, 1960, p. 36). The true importance of understanding others is that it creates a better
position in which to deliberate with them in democratic institutions, and indeed in the
justice system as a whole.
The most serious law schools in America (such as Harvard, Yale, University of
Chicago, and UC Berkeley) all offer some type of course in Law and Literature, and the
Law and Literature movement has been very successful. Since the 1970s, the
controversies over law and literature studies have moved away from the original question
of whether law and literature are related, and whether or not literature has a place in law
studies, to acknowledging that literature and law studies are indeed related, and that the
reading of literature can have a positive impact on the training and education of law
professionals. Reading literature helps to foster a mastery of the language and techniques
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that enables a lawyer to practice law more professionally. Literature also serves as an
important tool to foster moral and ethical awareness in students, and to analyze the
“cultural matrix” in which the law operates (Smith, 1987). Stories can become the heart,
the life, and the people of law when we teach through literature. Literature can remind us
of “the trauma, tragedy, and heartache of a case” which is “so often sucked out of the
law” (Myrsiades, 1998, p. 5).
Criminal Justice and Literature
Criminal justice students could also benefit from these similar insights into moral
and ethical values, as well as benefit from a mastery of the language that is so crucial in
the criminal justice system. Additionally, criminal justice students could benefit from the
ability to engage in the “perspective-taking” that law students already benefit from
through reading literature. Like law schools, criminal justice programs seek to produce
thoughtful individuals who aim to be leaders and professionals within their communities.
Similar to law students, criminal justice professionals need critical thinking skills,
empathy, the ability to make judgments, and not simply or blindly follow rules and
regulations to which they must adhere. The addition of a humanistic, literature based law
education has proven its benefits of creating dedicated and empathic professionals who
can better understand the effects that the system has on individual’s lives. The same
benefits should be applied to a criminal justice education. Indeed, it can be argued that a
humanistic, literature based education is a crucial component to a well-rounded and
liberal criminal justice education.
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Criminal Justice Education
In order to understand why literature should be included in criminal justice
curricula, it is first important to understand within which discipline criminal justice falls.
In modern academics, the disciplines are broken into groupings such as humanities, social
sciences, physical sciences, professional programs, and fine arts (Engel, 2003). These
groups are then broken down by the subject of study (music, history, psychology); the
methodologies used by the scholars within the field, and the end goals that are sought by
the graduates of the programs (pre-law, pre-med, etc.). This modern method of
categorizing disciplines is similar to an original categorization proposed by Aristotle
(trans. 1962) in his Nicomachean Ethics. In his work, Aristotle identifies five ways of
learning, or “five ways in which the soul arrives at truth,” that is appropriate for different
subjects. Science or scientific knowledge [epist’m’], intelligence or intuition [nous], and
theoretical wisdom [sophia] all deal with the natural world and that which is unchanging
(Aristotle, trans.1962; Engel, 2003). The final two ways of learning defined by are art or
technical skill [techn’] and practical wisdom [phron’sis], which deals with human
endeavors of contingency and technique.
Art, as defined by Aristotle, is not used in the same sense that it is today. When
we think of art today, we usually think of the realm of creativity. For Aristotle, art was
simply the “technical knowledge of how to produce something” (as cited in Engel, 2003,
p. 346). This “how to” knowledge can refer to the artisan who creates crafts, or in a
broader perspective to how to serve someone, such as a police officer serving their
community. The learning of art is also different because it does not require any
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deliberation about the purpose of an action; rather it only requires grasping a rule or
procedure. In this way, art can be seen as more of a technical training. Following this
perspective, many argue that Criminal Justice education is a technical education. Indeed,
when examining Aristotle’s definition of knowing through art, we can see that Criminal
Justice education does seem to involve technical skills. Criminal Justice professionals
need to understand the laws that define permitted and prohibited behavior, procedural
laws that govern when and how one must perform one’s duties, and even technical
training on how to write reports. In this way, a criminal justice education is similar to
other professional programs such as law schools.
Criminal justice education cannot be entirely described as technical training, or art
education. Criminal Justice education can also fall under the practical wisdom (phron’sis)
school of knowing. Aristotle defined practical wisdom as the “ability to make decisions
according to moral virtue and the situation at hand” (Aristotle, trans. 1962, p. 39). An
individual with practical wisdom differs from an individual knowledgeable in art in that
one is able to make judgments and deliberate about how to act in particular
circumstances. According to Aristotle (trans. 1995), intelligence is concerned with
particulars as well as universals because intelligence is concerned with action, and action
is about particulars (p. 405). Practical wisdom accomplishes this by teaching not only the
intricate technical matters criminal justice confronts every day, but also how to make
difficult judgments in situations where rules and procedures are not entirely clear on what
should occur. Criminal justice scholars such as Cullen (1995) have protested, “Criminal
Justice is not a technical, pre-professional, or vocational discipline” (p. 1). However,
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after viewing criminal justice education within the parameters of Aristotle’s five
academic classifications, it appears that Criminal Justice education is not only a technical
subject suitable for training, but is an appropriate object of practical wisdom, and thus
falls under the purview of liberal arts.
Criminal Justice professionals must also be able to deliberate and make difficult
judgments in almost every aspect of their jobs. There is a large amount of discretion
regarding their professional behavior, from whether or not to give a speeding ticket to
someone going one mile over the posted speed limit to the range of actions that could be
taken when confronting a domestic dispute call. In both of these examples, there are set
rules and procedures that limit the options an officer can take, but an even larger amount
of discretionary actions that an officer can choose from on an everyday basis. The unique
mixture of control and discretionary freedom in a criminal justice professional's work
means that a unique type of educational training is necessary to prepare future criminal
justice professionals for the situations they will encounter on a day-to-day basis; an
education best defined as a mixture between a liberal arts education, and a technical or
vocational education.
The Rise of the Modern University
To understand this mixture between a liberal arts education and a technical
education, it is important to look at how criminal justice education has developed over
the years. The earliest models of higher education in the United States were religious
ones. Most of the early colleges, many of whom would become the Ivy League schools
still in existence today, were connected to religious denominations. These early colleges
29
did not instruct in the modern sense that we are used to seeing today, rather they focused
on “restraining and disciplining one’s character,” which is how the fields of study became
known as “disciplines” (Morn, 1995, p. 1). These early colleges were not concerned with
training individuals for the workforce, but rather focused upon creating in the educated
person a “pious life” (Veysey, 1965, p. 22-56).
As the nineteenth century progressed, the religious orientation and exclusion of
elective classes in college education was slowly lifted, and classes that were previously
focused upon making a student a better person, became focused on creating an
enlightened citizen in a democracy (Morn, 1995). Rather than focusing upon religion and
discipline, the education at colleges now focused upon literature, philosophy, Western
Civilization, and other courses that emphasized a “liberal culture.” The liberal culture
orientation was strongest at Yale and Princeton, as evidenced by then President of
Princeton Woodrow Wilson’s statement that a university is not a place of general
education, or even the place where one finds a profession, but rather a place where a
student can find themselves (Veysey, 1965, p. 212).
Universities also changed due to the influence of Germany, and research and
scholarship became key components of the universities in the late nineteenth century.
Additionally, the prevalent pedagogical tools utilized within the universities changed to
focus upon the laboratory, lectures, and teaching through seminars (Morn, 1995, p. 2).
While these changes towards more scholarship within universities were deemed
important, if not vital, to the continuation of America’s higher education, it had the
unforeseen side effect of creating three political groups: students, faculty, and
30
administrators. The students did not necessarily crave scholarship, were more focused on
gaining a career, and viewed their professors mainly as instructors and not necessarily as
researchers. The faculty of the Universities were concerned with scholarship and research
more than training their students to find jobs out in the workforce, and the administrators
found that the genius and oftentimes eccentric professors were extremely difficult to
work with. In order to fix this conflict, graduate school became the home of students and
educators alike who were more focused on scholarship, which relieved much of the
tension that was felt between these three political groups. Additionally, the German
inspired research degree (Ph.D.) increasingly became the ultimate badge of the researchscholar after Yale awarded the first Ph.D. in 1861. However, despite these additions to
cater to those students interested in scholarship and research, the majority of students
who went to college in the 1890s sought a career.
The Professional School
One of the early solutions that ultimately brought scholarly status and practical
utility together in the university was the professional school. These schools were
designed to train practitioners for a specific occupation and were a compromise between
scholarship and “careerism” within higher education (Morn, 1995, p. 4). Four examples
of early professional schools include military, divinity, medicine, and law. One of the
earliest professional schools in America was the United States Military Academy. In fact,
early criminal justice educators wanted to develop a “West Point of Law Enforcement”
that would be modeled after this early professional school. In its infancy, the military
academy focused upon science and mathematics, and West Point was used to exclusively
31
train the Corps of engineers (Morn, 1995). Originally, this professional school started
with easy and shorter classes, allowing students to graduate after only attending a few
months of classes. It was not until the 1920s that other academic departments were added
to the school’s curriculum and a four-year program with one year of service was
introduced. West Point demonstrated two trends that would ultimately translate to
policing almost a century later. First, there was a desire to professionalize the higher
ranks in the military, similar to the desire to professionalize police officers. Second, there
was the conflicting belief from the public that the qualities that make a good soldier (and
a good police officer) such as honor, courage, and loyalty, could not be taught in the
classroom, thus suggesting that physical or technical training was necessary.
Nevertheless, the military academy was one type of educational model used for the
school of criminal justice.
Another professional school that shaped the model eventually used for the school
of criminal justice was the school of law. The Association of American Law Schools
began in 1900 and its members and organization were initially confronted with many
challenges. First, academic lawyers faced the challenge of finding a place in the world.
By the twentieth century, corporate lawyers had emerged and they seemed to be greater
supporters of special interests, spent more time in the boardroom than in a courtroom, and
simply practiced their law (Morn, 1995). Legal educators were training their students
how to practice the law; however, there were many educators, such as Felix Frankfurther,
who believed that law students should not only learn how to practice the law, but also
how to use the law to better society. Unfortunately, this belief in making professional
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lawyers who would better society was hampered by numerous “diploma mills” which
arose between 1890 and 1910, and provided inexpensive legal education that only
required a high school diploma to be accepted for admission to the bar. This resulted in
the legal establishment restricting and regulating law school education to create a united
standard for admissions, education requirements, bar standards, and curriculum (Morn,
1995, p. 9). These changes to the law school format ensured that lawyers were not just
being created, but educated to make a difference within the world that they practiced.
The ultimate goal of these professional schools was to ensure that not only were
their respective professionals being taught the “nuts and bolts” of their respective trades,
but also gaining a general education that would further develop the overall character of
the students. Daniel Coit Gilman, the first president of Johns Hopkins University, pleaded
for not only manual, technical training in colleges, but also for literary instruction as well.
Gilman believed that if our Universities focused solely on the advancement of knowledge
and technical training without simultaneously cultivating the overall character and
practical wisdom of our students, our society would be full of unusable cynics. Gilman
stated that he hoped the American University would never become “A society made up of
specialists, of men who have cultivated to the extreme a single power, without
simultaneously developing the various faculties of the mind” (as cited in Veysey, 1965, p.
162). In Gilman’s opinion, this would create a miserable society of “impractical
pessimists” (as cited in Veysey, 1965, p. 162). Thus, the modern university was changed
to not only educate individuals in general knowledge, but specific knowledge as well.
The amateurism that had previously pervaded the universities as a love of knowledge
33
became deemed a negative feature that connoted unskilled and unprofessional
individuals. Changes in the modern university also included the break down of one
department of general knowledge into broader concepts and departments called
disciplines.
“Schools” and Disciplines
It is important that we examine the disciplines under which criminal justice and
literature fall in order to understand how a blending of these two studies would be
beneficial. The field of studies called humanities began to professionalize in the late
nineteenth century and included studies in art, history, music, literature, philosophy, and
modern languages. Unfortunately, the humanities were never very powerful on the
university campus for various reasons. First, the discipline struggled within itself over the
desire to apply rigorous German scholarship versus those who believed the programs
should be more free-flowing (Morn, 1995, p. 12). Second, there was no real
interrelationship between the humanities department and other disciplines. This was
because disciplines like the social sciences claimed to be “scientific” and thus were
widely accepted by the other disciplines within the university. History was the only study
within the humanities discipline to gain university recognition and prestige with the
addition of quantitative methodology into its curriculum. Unfortunately, the rest of the
studies within the humanities were relegated to a minor position (Morn, 1995, p. 13).
The discipline of social sciences, which includes studies of anthropology,
psychology, sociology, political science, economics, and eventually criminal justice,
developed as a distinct discipline in 1870. This discipline rose in the late nineteenth-
34
century when social issues and problems related to the industrial and urban revolutions
came to the forefront of American society. Professors from other areas of study began to
offer topics of interest within advanced courses of moral philosophy and this resulted in
the creation of the American Social Science Association by 1865 (Morn, 1995, p. 14). In
1876, Gilman, the president of Johns Hopkins University, set up a “professorship of
political and economic science” (Parrish, 1967, p. 4). Within the early years, the Social
Science discipline was dominated by economics and psychology. Political Science did
not advance until 1876 when John W. Burgess established a department for Columbia
University, and again in 1903 when Burgess established the American Political Science
Association (APSA). The most active phase of academic politics and professionalization
for the Social Science discipline occurred between the 1890s and the 1920s. New
disciplines that were developing and breaking away from the main discipline were
struggling with clearly defining the main drive of each new discipline, and deciding
whether they were deemed a social science, or a social science.
Among the Social Science disciplines were two disciplines, political science and
sociology, that had the greatest impact upon criminal justice. Political Science, at the turn
of the century, was influenced by Woodrow Wilson’s book The Study of Administration
(1887) which suggested that political science break away from the school of history (as
cited in Morn, 1995). By 1914, there were 38 institutions in America with distinct and
separate political science departments, and there were political science components
within history, sociology, and economics within 89 colleges (Morn, 1995, p. 16). Political
Science was also furthered within the university setting when Charles Merriam joined the
35
University of Chicago in 1900 and set forth a new political science in which history was
subordinated to statistics and psychology, making it more “science” focused rather than
“social” focused. It was Merriam’s belief that political science should attempt to solve the
problems within society and serve that society as well (Morn, 1995, p. 17).
Merriam was impactful to political science in three main ways. First, following
his leadership, political science was advanced when the amount of doctorates in political
science increased from thirteen in 1920, to 80 between 1920 and 1940 (Karl, 1974, p.
118). Second, Merriam established relationships with philanthropic organizations such as
the Rockefeller Foundation and the Spelman Fund, which would provide funding for
research and for the establishment of more classes at universities. Through his political
skill and connections to philanthropic foundations, Merriam was able to establish the
Social Science Research Council in 1923, which would regulate the distribution of
research money toward social problems, and opened the door for the grant that the
policing school at UC Berkeley would eventually receive (Karl, 1974). Thirdly, Merriam
advocated for interdisciplinary cooperation and the belief that all the social sciences
should join “together to consider the fundamental social problems in which they are all
concerned and which cannot be effectively solved without their joint consolidation and
action” (as cited in Morn, 1995, p. 18). This belief of interdisciplinary cooperation would
eventually be passed to the policing school and the school of criminal justice.
Sociology also had a major impact on the formation of criminal justice. Though it
has been termed the “science of leftovers” and worked mostly with studies of the
“defective, dependent and delinquent classes,” the work that sociology did on studying
36
the social problems during the industrial and urban revolutions was compelling (Carey,
1975). Between 1889 and 1900, nearly one hundred colleges and universities introduced
and offered courses in sociology. At first, it was not clear what the department of
sociology was going to be, but many believed that it should be mainly focused on the
study of contemporary society through an interdisciplinary approach. History and
economics were seen to have an important place in the study of sociology and were
added to the curricula, and courses in philosophy, political science, psychology, and even
household administration could be taken (Morn, 1995). However, sociology mostly dealt
with social work and was not considered truly academic until after 1920 with the
professionalization of social work and the creation of a separate School of Social Service
Administration at the University of Chicago, which separated the discipline of sociology
from that of social work. Between 1915 and 1935, the University of Chicago’s sociology
department achieved nationwide prominence with its scholarship, and with this prestige
established itself as the Chicago School of Sociology. Indeed, it is this School of
Sociology that eventually would largely contribute to juvenile justice studies, the creation
of theories and textbooks on criminology, and many theories of criminal justice that are
still in use today.
The rise of the modern university, and the formation of Academic professions in
America between 1870 and 1930, was important in laying the groundwork for the
establishment of the discipline of criminal justice. While the ancient professions of law,
medicine, and divinity continued to evolve and professionalize, other fields of knowledge
began to professionalize and turned into academic disciplines. The propagation of
37
academic disciplines and professional schools in the late nineteenth century and early
twentieth century created the perfect framework for the rise and spread of criminal justice
education.
Police Education
In 1908, August Vollmer opened a police academy in the city of Berkeley,
California along with Walter Peterson, who was an officer with the Oakland police
department. This academy taught police methods and technical training to police officers.
According to Farris (1965), by 1911 the program had expanded to require six subjects to
be taught to and understood by its personnel: first aid, knowledge of state laws and city
ordinances, the principles of evidence, the rules of evidence, treatment of juvenile cases,
and the rights and duties of witnesses (as cited in Morn, 1995, p. 29). This police
academy was started one full year before Philadelphia’s School of Instruction came into
existence, making Vollmer the founding father of the police academy movement. In
1916, August Vollmer created a relationship with the University of California, Berkeley,
to offer summer classes for existing police officers. These classes lasted throughout the
1920s and effectively blurred the lines between technical police training (that still existed
at the Berkeley police station) and education (found at the University). The results of the
police school after its first year were promising, and in 1917 Vollmer and Albert
Schneider, a professor at the University, created a plan to create a full time police school
at the University (Hudzik, 1978). Their plan hinged on the belief that a law recently
passed in Washington D. C. subsidizing vocational training in secondary schools would
soon be extended to support higher education as well. Unfortunately, this did not occur
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until the 1930s and the university police class remained available only to currently
working police officers. Additionally, energy, resources, and attention were drained away
from the idea of creating this university police school with the start of World War I, and
the idea of creating a police school ended in 1919.
August Vollmer’s Police Progressivism
Throughout the 1920s Vollmer continued to work for police reform. Vollmer
modernized the Berkeley police department by adding a fingerprinting system, an early
version of a polygraph machine, handwriting classification, requiring psychiatric
screening for recruitment, and even became the first to install aluminum street markers in
America in 1924. Vollmer became the president of the International Association of
Chiefs of Police in 1922, where he articulated his ideas on police reform, modernization,
and the need for more professional and educated police officers (Carte & Carte, 1975).
Vollmer argued that more police academies and schools were needed, as well as
universities to study criminal behavior and the overall causes of crime. Vollmer firmly
believed that police work should be studied as a social science and understood that there
was a great need for principles of police administration. Indeed, the UC Berkeley School
of Policing was different from all other policing schools at the time because its training
did not wholly focus on the technical mechanics of a police officer’s job, but also on the
personal element of considering the causes of delinquency. The Berkeley school was the
first police school to realize the importance of training officers in fundamentals of
psychology and psychiatry to understand human behavior and the criminals that they
dealt with every day (Haynes, 1935). However, raising recruitment standards for police
39
officers and arguing for higher educated officers was easier in places such as Berkeley
when compared to places such as Chicago, which still believed in more military/technical
type training and was not as interested in police progressivism.
Despite negativity and doubt from his fellow police chiefs, Vollmer continued to
make positive changes to the Berkeley police department by hiring college students to
come work for the police. Some of the “college cops” included individuals like V.A.
Leonard (who authored sixteen criminal justice books), William F. Dean (who later
achieved fame as a general in the Korean War), John D. Holstrom (who later became the
police chief in Berkeley), and Orlando Wilson (who eventually became the chief of
police in Wichita and started the school for policing there). Some of these collegeeducated officers lasted only a few weeks because they refused to do “dirty duty” and felt
that they knew more than their commanding officers did. However, there were other
students working as police officers who performed extremely well and ended up
changing their college-bound professions to become police officers. This cemented
Vollmer’s and other police progressives’ belief that by coupling training and education,
individual officers would do better work, and policing would be lifted from being simply
an occupation to a profession (Morn, 1995).
Vollmer made education a top priority among his police recruits. Vollmer argued
the importance of education for police officers by stating, “The policeman’s job is the
highest calling in the world. The men who do that job should be the finest men. They
should be the best educated. They should be college graduates. That’s what policemen
should be” (as cited in Stamper, 2005, p. 361). Vollmer also made changes in Los
40
Angeles when he served as their police chief for one year (before giving up due to the
amount of corruption), setting up a school within the department, and reorganizing and
modernizing its administration (Carte & Carte, 1975). With Vollmer’s reputation as an
expert on policing, he was selected in 1929 to work on the National Commission on Law
Observance and Enforcement, also known as the Wickersham Commission (Morn, 1995,
p. 32). The Wickersham reports covered issues of crime, courts, police, and corrections.
Unfortunately, these reports did not display the police in a positive light. A popular
version of one of the reports, “Our Lawless Police,” focused upon the problems of police
brutality and was very critical of the police force. On the other hand, Vollmer also
included a report called The Police, which restated his progressive ideas to positively
influence the police.
In response to the Wickersham reports, the Rockefeller Foundation offered a grant
of $280,000 to the Public Administration and Political Science department at University
of California, Berkeley to develop police studies programs and for the establishment of a
Bureau of Municipal Administration to provide training for all lines of public service
(Walker, 1998). With this funding, the school of policing was able to expand to offer
classes in Criminal Law and Procedure, Police Psychiatry, Criminal Identification, Police
Organization and Administration, in addition to the technical police subjects, resulting in
recruits receiving 312 hours of work within the police school (Carte, 1983, p. v). This
grant also allowed for Vollmer and other professors from the university to visit other
universities (Chicago, Wisconsin, Northwestern) to give courses on police administration
similar to those offered at UC Berkeley. This had a great impact on policing school in
41
universities across the country because they began to greatly mimic the UC Berkeley
School, and Vollmer’s overall beliefs on police progressivism.
Orlando Wilson’s Police Administration
Vollmer’s influence on policing and policing school was further solidified when
several of his “disciples” (previous graduates of school at UC Berkeley under Vollmer)
went on to teach at other universities across the country, installing programs similar to
Vollmer’s and based on their interpretation of his teachings. One such disciple who was
very influential was Orlando Wilson. Leadership in policing passed from Vollmer to
Wilson in the late 1930s when August Vollmer retired from the Berkeley police
department. Wilson expanded police education with his work in 1936 at the Municipal
University of Wichita when he got the political science department at the university to
adopt the policing school and offer classes in criminal law, evidence, investigation,
identification, patrol, traffic, and police administration (Morn, 1995, p. 36). Wilson also
developed a police cadet academy that allowed non-police students taking courses in
policing to work part-time for the Wichita police department (Bopp, 1977).
When Vollmer retired from UC Berkeley’s political science department in 1937,
Orlando Wilson was brought in to fill the position and remained there until 1960. In
addition to building the School of Criminology at UC Berkeley and offering the first
doctorate in criminology, Wilson also wrote Police Administration (1950) which became
the foremost book on police management. His management principles ultimately defined
the terms of police professionalism (Walker, 1998, p. 172). By 1950, Wilson had also
increased the School of Criminology at UC Berkeley to offer majors on law enforcement,
42
criminalistics, and corrections. The core curriculum of first year students included
classes on criminal investigation, police administration, physical evidence, legal
medicine, and legal relations, while second year students were required to take police
planning, traffic engineering, detection of deception, and crime and delinquency. Despite
the growth of policing schools, it was still under the Political Science department of most
universities, and Wilson strongly argued that until it was its own separate department, the
study of policing (criminal justice) would not be taken seriously.
The Law Enforcement Education Program
Following a considerable period of social unrest and a largely negative view of
police officers, four national commissions to study crime or violence in the late 1960s
and early 1970s recommended the development of higher education standards for justice
system employees, as well as a comprehensive research program to discover the causes of
crime. The Law Enforcement Education Program (LEEP) helped with the expansion of
criminal justice education by extensively funding criminal justice programs in both two
and four-year colleges, and within universities. In 1969, the program served 20,602
students with an expenditure of $6.5 million, by 1970, LEEP provided grants to 735
schools, and, at its peak in the mid-1970s, provided 100,000 students a year with funding
in excess of $44 million (Johnson, Wolfe, & Jones, 2008, p. 321; Sigler & Dudeck,
1985).
The aid offered by the LEEP helped to establish criminal justice as an academic
discipline in colleges and universities. According to Misner (1981), before the 1950s,
43
there were fewer than 1,000 students enrolled in justice system related programs at the
less than 50 programs that were offered in the U.S. (as cited in Sigler & Dudeck, 1985, p.
163). Despite the growth of police education from its beginnings in the early 1900s, by
1968 less than 10% of America’s police officers had some form of college education
(Jacobs & Magdovitz, 1977). When the LEEP funds became available in 1970, it
dramatically increased the amount of institutions that offered criminal justice courses,
certificates, or degree programs. For example, in the beginning of 1970, Alabama had
seven institutions that offered criminal justice degree programs, courses, or certificates,
five of which were junior colleges. Between 1971 and 1972 twelve more programs were
developed (four in junior colleges), and by 1982 there were thirty programs in existence
in Alabama (Sigler & Dudeck, 1985, p. 166). By the late 1970s there were 729 associate
of arts criminal justice programs while upper division and graduate programs in the field
expanded to 367 bachelors’ programs, and 121 master’s programs (Akers, 1992, p. 7).
This amazing growth was possible due to the LEEP, and growth at the undergraduate
level continued even after the program ended in 1982.
Integrating the Interdisciplinary with Criminal Justice
In the 1970s, with the enactment of the LEEP, the curriculum of criminology also
started to become more interdisciplinary (adding classes on the sociology/ psychology of
crime), and moved from being simply a vocational training program to a broader liberal
arts education (Sigler & Dudeck, 1985, p. 165). This shift towards becoming more
interdisciplinary was also evidenced at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences
44
national conferences that took place in Louisville in 1982, and in San Antonio in 1983,
where the meetings had more than sixteen panels devoted to criminal justice and political
science, anthropology, philosophy, public policy, law, economics, and history, among
others (Morn, 1995, p. 170). This new interdisciplinary focus was also evident in the
amount and type of interdisciplinary classes that were being added to criminal justice
curriculum such as forensics in criminal justice, criminal justice and economics, and the
psychology of crime. The criminal justice discipline also grew by further distancing itself
away from the school of criminology and by fully embracing the interdisciplinary while
criminology remained dominated by sociologists (Morn, 1995, p. 163). The growth of
police education, as a result of the LEEP, was beneficial in two primary ways. First,
educational contact with other disciplines and segments of contemporary society worked
to soften the insularity of police subculture. Second, a general liberal arts education was
beneficial to create police professionals who were better equipped to deal with the
sophisticated investigative techniques of the future, and still remain both effective and
publicly accepted in the work that they perform (Johnson, Wolfe & Jones, 2008, p. 322).
Despite criminal justice education broadening to accept and teach other
disciplines, the disciplines that were predominately focused upon were those related to
the social sciences. In the 1980s, following the explosive growth of criminal justice
education that resulted from the LEEP, additional disciplines were added to the field with
limited acceptance, including anthropology, philosophy, and even history (Smith, 1987).
This change is still evident in current criminal justice curriculum. For example, a Police
45
and Society course in the criminal justice curriculum integrates economics, sociology,
law, and ethics; a course on Crime and Punishment integrates both history and
philosophy; and a class on Interview and Detection of Deception integrates
communication, physiological, and psychosocial points of view (CSUS course catalog).
Despite this growth, one discipline that has not been readily accepted into criminal justice
education is the humanities, and more specifically, the study of literature.
For centuries, society has struggled with crime and mankind has sought to
understand how society breeds criminal conduct and the criminal mind. Most of the
contributions to the development of both criminology and criminal justice have been
made by theorists and researchers with backgrounds in law, psychology, anthropology,
economics, medicine, and sociology. Unfortunately, contributions from drama or
literature have seldom been recognized within these disciplines (Time, 1999, p. 4). This
fact is provocative considering the fact that classes already exist in the majority of other
disciplines that teach “and literature” courses. For example, there are journals devoted to
the study of philosophy and literature, religion and literature, psychology in literature,
and history and literature. Health professions have also seen the benefits of including
literature in their curriculum by “defining narrative competence in medicine as the ability
to acknowledge, absorb, interpret, and act on stories and plights of others” (Charon, 2001,
p. 1897). Even disciplines that one would not necessarily expect to incorporate literary
studies (math, science) have classes that include literary works by Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy,
and even Austen, to teach core concepts. Thus, the inclusion of literary studies would not
46
be without precedence, and, in fact, would be highly beneficial to criminal justice
education.
Teaching Literature in Criminal Justice
Evidence suggests that integrating the study of criminal justice with the study of
the humanities would be beneficial, yet there are no current existing programs that teach
concepts of criminal justice through works of literature. However, there were a few
experimental classes in the 1980s that sought to broaden criminal justice education by
integrating literature in the curriculum. In 1980 and 1981, the National Endowment for
the Humanities funded five-week summer institutes on criminal justice and the
humanities at Boston University (Hirschel & McNair, 1982). These studies and seminars
demonstrated that the humanities could be very useful in demonstrating theories and
systems in criminal justice, and conversely, studies of criminal justice theories made
students aware of “intellectual climates” that prompted work in the humanities (Hirschel
& McNair, 1982, p. 76).
Hirschel and McNair’s Criminal Justice and Literature Course
In 1979 the Criminal Justice Department at the University of North Carolina,
Charlotte (UNCC) was given a grant by a local benefactor who worked in the legal
profession to provide a series of one-semester courses that would integrate criminal
justice topics with topics in the humanities. The first course in the series that was offered
was “Criminal Justice and Literature”, taught together by Dr. J. David Hirschel (an
associate professor of criminal justice at UNCC), and Dr. John McNair (an assistant
47
professor of English at UNCC). There were two main topics chosen for the class: theories
of criminal justice and systems of criminal justice. The main objective of the course was
to introduce students to selected theories and systems of criminal justice in association
with works of literature (Hirschel & McNair, 1982). There were two main goals of the
course. First, that students in the humanities would gain an understanding of criminal
justice theories and systems within the context of literary reflections of those concepts
and systems; and criminal justice students would discover a body of literature that
reflected matters of criminal justice in a new and interesting light. Second, that students
within all disciplines would experience the opportunity to view criminal justice theories
in both an objective and imaginative manner in order to not only know the facts but the
feeling for the facts as well (Hirschel & McNair, 1982).
Hirschel and McNair’s semester course was divided in half, one-half of the
semester devoted to criminal justice theories, and the second half devoted to criminal
justice systems. The literature they utilized for the first half of the course came from Paul
Dow’s anthology Criminology in Literature (1980). In the second half, the course used
two novels: Henry Fielding’s Jonathan Wild (1961), and Franz Kafka’s The Trial (1969).
Additionally, the general textbook of Sue Titus Reid’s text Crime and Criminology
(1979) was used to supply main readings for the course, and served as a good handbook
for students in the humanities (Hirschel & McNair, 1982). For the first half of the course,
short story readings were assigned, as well as readings from the Criminology textbook.
By presenting introductions into criminal justice concepts and theories, and then
48
augmenting them with short stories, Hirschel and McNair were able to introduce their
students to core concepts, and offer them “illustrations, examples, and sounding boards”
for the readings in criminal justice (Hirschel & McNair, 1982). For example, in their
report, Hirschel and McNair showed how an introduction to a psychiatric theory of crime
was exemplified in Flannery O’Conner’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” In this short
story, there are misfit characters with an abundance of Id and a “perverted superego” that
create the perfect setting for approaching the psychological theories of Freud, Alder, and
Jung (Hirschel & McNair, 1982, p. 79).
Students of this course were encouraged to respond to their readings by breaking
into smaller groups within the classroom and discussing questions on the reading that
were prepared beforehand by the professors. After fifteen to twenty minutes of group
discussion, each group would select a representative to tell their findings to the rest of the
class. Each finding was then open to discussion by the class as a whole, with the
professors serving as directors of the discussion when needed. The result of this class
structure, according to Hirschel and McNair’s (1982) report was that lively discussions
on key points were generated and students were able to broaden their perspectives on
both criminal justice concepts and literature (p. 80). The course also utilized lectures on
literary matters (background of authors, literary terms like symbolism), and on criminal
justice matters not covered in the Criminology textbook (p. 80). Assimilation of
knowledge was tested in the students in the form of weekly five question quizzes and a
49
concluding midterm examination that was thirty percent objective and 70 percent essay
portion, based on the literary readings, Criminology textbook, and class lectures (p. 80).
The second half of the course examined the evolution of the criminal justice
system from the eighteenth century to the present. Literary works used in this portion of
the class were Jonathan Wilde, The Trial, Shakespeare’s “The Rape of Lucrece” (1980),
Dante’s Inferno (1980), along with various passages by Dickens’ American Notes (1970),
and Bauldelaire’s “The Flowers of Evil” (1975). These various works demonstrated the
historical view of crime as sin (Shakespeare, Dante), and a more modern view that a
modern criminal was an entrepreneur (Fielding, Kafka). According to Hirschel and
McNair (1982), the students, while reading the works in the second half of the class, were
able to apply previously learned criminological theories to the stories they were reading
(p. 82). Students were also required to present a group project on a topic that combined
elements from both English and Criminal Justice, thus combining humanities and
criminal justice students, as well as bringing special topics into the classroom. Hirschel
and McNair reported that by the end of the course, the students had a greater
understanding of criminal justice theories and systems with a greater understanding of the
historical context and relationship to literature (p. 84).
At the end of Hirschel and McNair’s class, they distributed a short questionnaire
to students to evaluate the class. Thirty-two of the thirty-six enrolled students in the
course completed the questionnaire with a response rate of 88.9%. The reliability of this
questionnaire was tested by correlating students’ responses to a number of questions that
50
would be expected to show an association in a particular direction if the respondents to
the question were answering truthfully and consistently. A check on the background data
given by the respondents of the questionnaire also gave no indication that the respondents
were answering anything but truthfully and in an objective manner (Hirschel & McNair,
1982, p. 85). Finally, they showed that the content analysis of the responses on four openended questions suggested that their respondents were indeed forthright and honest in
their answers (p. 85). Three main issues were examined in the questionnaire. First, the
extent in which the students felt the course measured up to the intended purpose as
defined by the instructors. Second, student evaluations of the reading material assigned
throughout the course. Third, student reactions to the teaching techniques that were
employed and the methods utilized to grade the students work (Hirschel & McNair, 1982,
p. 85). The study results demonstrated, in the open-ended questions, eighteen (59.1%) out
of thirty-one respondents took the course to explore the interrelationship between
Criminal Justice and Literature. Some responses included, “To be able to incorporate
more literature in with my knowledge of Criminal Justice”, and “I thought it would be
interesting to apply and look at the Criminal justice system in literary works” (Hirschel &
McNair, 1982). Meanwhile, seven (22.6%) of the students said they took the course
because it sounded interesting or exciting, four (12.9%) took it to fulfill degree
requirements, and two (6.4%) took it for other reasons. This clearly signifies that there
was interest in integrating the study of Literature in Criminal Justice. Additionally, when
students were questioned as to the extent that the course met their objectives, twenty-
51
three (76.7%) gave positive or highly positive responses, five (16.7%) gave neutral
responses, and two (6.6%) gave negative responses (Hirschel & McNair, 1982, p. 86).
Most interesting about Hirschel and McNair’s (1982) study is that, when students
were questioned in regard to the issue of whether reading novels and short stories
increased their understanding of criminology and criminal justice, the overwhelming
majority of the students answered positively, with only three (9.4%) of the students
disagreeing. This displays that students indeed found a positive relationship between
literature and criminal justice. Interestingly, 75% of the students stated that after taking
the course, they would be more inclined to take other Criminal Justice courses, and
56.3% would be more inclined to take other English courses. This indicates that this
experimental course not only provided a worthwhile experience for those who took the
class, but also inspired students who had little exposure to the opposite discipline to
consider taking further courses within that discipline.
Regarding the readings in the class, an evaluation was given in which the students
rated them based on a five point Likert scale. The results showed that students rated
highly the short stories taken from Dow’s anthology, while giving low scores to
Shakespeare’s “The Rape of Lucrece” and Fielding’s Jonathan Wilde (due to the fact that
the students found the archaic language confusing). Taking this into account, Hirschel
and McNair remark at the end of their report that when the course is offered again, they
will include more modern literature rather than pre-nineteenth century literature. In their
conclusion, Hirschel and McNair (1982) emphasize the need to include humanities
52
studies in criminal justice education, and vice-a-versa criminal justice science studies in
the humanities. Hirschel and McNair (1982) argued that “it is as great a deprivation for
students of the humanities to be ignorant of the world of the sciences, where so many
theories and practices not only derive from literature and the arts but also bear on them in
powerful and far-reaching ways” (p. 96). However, despite the evidence that this course
was both successful and beneficial, UNCC did not repeat the class and the topic was not
revisited until years later.
Beverly Smith’s Argument for Literature in Criminal Justice
In 1987, Beverly Smith, a professor in the department of criminal justice at
Illinois State University, wrote an article in which she also argued for the utilization of
literature in criminal justice education. Smith noted that criminal justice education had
predominately been represented by the more scientific disciplines of
sociology/criminology, law, psychology, and public administration (p. 137). Smith
argued that, with criminal justice education emerging from its adolescence following its
substantial growth after the LEEP funding, it was time to enrich its future by adding the
discipline of literature to the interdisciplinary field of criminal justice. This argument was
supported by evidence that the addition of literature to criminal justice would not be
without precedence since literature’s importance had already been proven in America’s
law schools to be a valuable, if not necessary, part of the pre-law and law school
education (Smith, 1987, p. 138). According to Smith (1976), law schools had already
seen that literature served as an important tool through which “legal education should
53
attempt to foster in students an awareness of these [moral] values and the ability to
analyze the cultural matrix in which the law operates” (as cited in Smith 1987, p. 138).
Smith argued that students of criminal justice would also benefit from similar moral
insight and a better grasp on the use of language.
Beverly Smith’s article and methodology varies from Hirschel and McNair’s in
that she does not argue for a separate class teaching criminal justice and literature, but
rather an inclusion of literature in pre-existing courses. Smith’s (1987) reasoning for this
type of inclusion of literature in already existing courses was because she observed that
budgetary exigencies and the overall number of pre-existing core courses in criminal
justice coursework would make it hard to include permanent classes on criminal justice
and literature (p. 138). Therefore, Smith reasoned that literature could be used on a
limited basis in established criminal justice courses. In order to accomplish this, Smith
argued that only short stories and one-act plays should be used in the courses, rather than
the lengthier novels utilized in Hirschel and McNair’s class curriculum.
Most importantly, Smith (1987) clearly outlines what types of stories and plays
should be chosen, and offers a criterion for choosing appropriate literature. First, she
states that fictional works should be supported by three types of material: literary
criticism on the chosen works; criminal justice research on the chosen topic; and related
research on the topic in law, history, sociology, psychology, or any other social science
discipline (p. 138). Second, that the fiction utilized should be the work of twentiethcentury American authors, with the exclusion of works in the detective/mystery science
54
fiction genres. Following this criteria, Smith offers four examples of fiction that can be
used in criminal justice courses broken into four separate categories: spouse abuse and
murder, juvenile delinquency, riots, and rape (p. 139).
To illustrate spouse abuse and murder, Smith chose Susan Glaspell’s one-act play
Trifles. This play, later adapted into a short story, follows the story of a group of rural
women who deduce the details of a murder in which a woman (Minnie) has killed her
abusive husband. They deduce clues left among the “trifles” in Minnie’s kitchen,
including a dead canary, a favorite pet of Minnie’s that had been strangled, and surmise
that Minnie’s husband strangled the bird, so Minnie in turn strangled him. The women in
the story are at first horrified at the crime, but eventually decide that under the same
abusive circumstances, they would have reacted similarly. Thus, the women hide the
dead bird’s body (which they deem evidence of Minnie’s guilt), ultimately acting as
Minnie’s “jury of her peers” and find her innocent (Smith, 1987, p. 140). This story is
illustrative in criminal justice education for discussing theories of spousal assault, victim
precipitation, legal standards of insanity, mitigating circumstances of self-defense, among
others, and even the controversial issue of special pleas that are entered by battered wives
who kill their husbands (Smith, 1987, p. 140). Smith clearly demonstrates how reading a
story in relation to criminal justice concepts can greatly enhance the study of that
particular subject and invoke strong feelings and moral deliberations.
To illustrate juvenile delinquency, Beverly Smith (1987) suggested the 1969 short
story by Joyce Carol Oates, “How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of
55
Correction and Began My Life Over Again.” This story follows the crimes of a teenage
girl, who never reveals her name and writes about herself in the third person, as she
begins to shoplift as a child (though she is rich enough to buy the items). She runs away
from home, after being caught by a store detective, to live in a Detroit ghetto where she
becomes a prostitute for her drug addict pimp/lover. The young girl eventually finds
herself in the Detroit House of Corrections where she is beaten and molested by two
other girls who were street-hardened veterans incarcerated for crimes that were more
serious. Eventually the young girl is released back to her family and school where she
visits with a psychologist. This story, according to Smith (1987), can easily engender a
class discussion on juvenile delinquency theories, the impact of peer pressure and sibling
examples on juveniles, gender bias of the system, violence within juvenile institutions,
the impact of being labeled a delinquent, and even the effects that the urban underworld
can have on attracting homeless juveniles (p. 140).
To illustrate the issue of riots in the criminal justice system, Smith suggests using
another inner city ghetto setting, Ann Petry’s (1947) “In Darkness and Confusion.” This
story shows life in Harlem prior to and during the violent riot of 1943 through the eyes of
a black resident, William Jones, who works as a shop assistant for a racist white druggist.
Jones’ family ekes out a very poor existence, his sickly wife working as a domestic for
very low wages, while his niece, who lives with them, works as a prostitute. William
Jones becomes an instigator of a mob after he learns that his son, Sam, a soldier training
in Georgia, refused to sit in the back on a segregated bus, was shot by a white MP, and
56
had returned fire on that MP, was subsequently court marshaled and sentenced to twenty
years. Immediately following this troubling news, William Jones witnesses a black
soldier defending a black woman against a white cop’s nightstick and is shot for his
actions. Jones is so outraged that that he becomes an instigator in the mob, which fans out
from this shooting scene. Even Jones’ wife joins in, after hearing about her son, by
breaking the first store window that leads the mob on its spree (Smith, 1987, p. 141). This
story tells in vivid detail the course of a riot from the first instigating situation to the
confusion of the police at being overwhelmed, outmanned, and untrained for dealing with
mass riot circumstances. This story is a good illustration to students about how poverty,
frustration, unemployment, and other issues can escalate in a community to create
environments perfect for a riot situation. This is helpful for students to view both the
rioters’ point of view in a riot situation, and the view of the police.
The final category that Smith offers literature to illustrate is rape. Smith suggests
using the short story “The Trial” (1977) by George Chambers. This story concerns the
thoughts of a rape victim as she testifies at her rapists’ trial. However, a clever defense
attorney during the trial brings up several facts that damage the woman’s credibility,
including the fact that she has two illegitimate children, and had previously been raped by
several members of a motorcycle gang which she had not reported to police and had
continued to allow to wash their bikes at her residence. These admissions, along with
false alibis from the defendant’s family, result in a non-guilty verdict and her rapist goes
free (Smith, 1987, p. 142). This literature addresses key issues that often arise when
57
dealing with a rape case, including the victim being turned into a “defendant” due to past
behavior, how rape victims often blame themselves for the circumstances that happen to
them, and even the difficulties of gaining an accurate account of the quantity of rapes that
actually occur due to victims not reporting their rape. In just a few short pages, this story
lets readers into the mind of the victim-witness and connects them to the crime that has
occurred.
Beverly Smith firmly believed in the benefit of using literature to illustrate
criminal justice concepts within already existing classes and continued to write articles on
the utilization of literature, including a 1993 article on using “The Fictional Con Man as a
Teaching Tool,” several lectures on aspects of crime found in twentieth century literature,
and a bibliography of books that could be utilized to teach about crime and criminal
justice. However, while advocating for the use of literature in criminal justice courses,
Smith’s research was not an expansion of Hirschel and McNair’s original class, and, if
anything, served to undermine the importance of combining humanities with the study of
criminal justice that Hirschel and McNair’s experimental class had worked so hard to
prove.
Steven T. Engel
The most recent criminal justice journal article that advocated for the inclusion of
literature in criminal justice education was an article written by Steven Engel in 2003
published in the Journal of Criminal Justice Education. In the article, Engel argues for
the integration of literature, especially novels, into the criminal justice curriculum (Engel,
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2003). Engel supports this claim by referencing Martha Nussbaum, a supporter of the law
and literature movement, and her book Poetic Justice (1995). In Nussbaum’s book, she
argued for the inclusion of the humanities in law school curriculum, and Engel argues
that like law schools, criminal justice programs also seek to produce thoughtful
individuals who will be leaders in their communities (Engel, 2003, p. 345). This was
based on the belief that criminal justice education is a field that sits squarely within the
liberal arts, and as such, should include aspects of the humanities, such as literature, in its
curriculum. Engel’s claim was also supported by Nussbaum’s argument that a key aspect
of liberal education is the development of a narrative imagination, which helps foster
empathy for others who are different from oneself (Engel, 2003, p. 347). By reading
stories that depict the lives of others, we are able to view aspects of life in a concrete
setting. This allows us to feel connected to others in order to feel what they feel, and
experience the same things that they experience. Engel (2003) argues that reading
literature can help criminal justice professionals to be in a better position to deliberate
with others in a democratic institution (p. 348).
The benefit of developing narrative imagination, according to Engel (2003), is
that it serves to assist the development of practical wisdom. Aristotle defined practical
wisdom as being “concerned with particulars as well as universals” (as cited in Engel,
2003, p. 348). In other words, it is the application of general principles and universal
norms in incongruent situations (Engel, 2003, p. 348). These are similar to situations that
criminal justice professionals find themselves facing every day on the job. Engel argues
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that reading literature can help develop this sensitivity because literature shows universal
truths about human nature and facts about society set in particular situations in the lives
of a character in a story or a play (p. 348). If criminal justice students are to gain the
ability to deliberate and make judgments in difficult circumstances where no clear rule is
set, then they must work towards imagining how rules and procedures will affect various
people in different circumstances.
While Engel believes that literature is the best way to cultivate practical wisdom,
he does note in his article that it is not the only way to cultivate practical wisdom and a
narrative imagination. According to Engel, the use of case studies and role playing that
are used in traditional criminal justice education can also cultivate practical wisdom, but
not at the same depth that is offered by literature (Engel, 2003, p. 348). Engel uses the
example that reading statistics about racial profiling can help students understand the
general concept and amount of racial profiling, but they do not help students understand
the experience of being pulled over because of the color of one’s skin, rather than
because of a traffic violation (Engel, 2003, p. 348). However, Aristotle makes the point
that the best way to develop practical wisdom is not through education, but actual
experience (as cited in Engel, 2003, p. 349). Engel recognizes that a university education
has limitations for how well a student can actually experience these types of situations
where they will have to apply universal principles in particular situations, but that
teaching literature is an excellent way to prepare them for those experiences (Engel,
2003, p. 349).
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Engel also makes the argument that teaching literature in a professional criminal
justice program is important because criminal justice professionals deal with some of the
most vulnerable people in society and it is crucial that students develop not only a sense
of justice, but empathy as well (Engel, 2003, p. 349). Engel believes that students of
criminal justice need to understand how it feels to be a victim, how it feels to be the
accused lost in a world of legalistic language that makes no sense, and even how it feels
to be imprisoned and lose all freedom (p. 349). By viewing these various points of view
of individuals who come into contact with the justice system, a student will be better able
to choose an appropriate response when a particular situation arises.
Engel offers a list of novels and short stories in his article that he has previously
used in his criminal justice curriculum to draw connections between aspects of each of
the works that are relevant to better understand the criminal justice system. Engel notes
that when assigning literature in his class, he hands out a series of reading questions (3-6
for each class period) that directs the students to focus on certain key themes that will be
discussed in class. The first work Engel discusses is Native Son by Richard Wright
(1940). This story is set in Chicago in the 1930s and examines themes of race, class and
justice within American society. The story follows Bigger Thomas, a young AfricanAmerican man and the protagonist of the story, as he confronts a racist society and a
punitive criminal justice system. Engel notes that at various points of this novel we
encounter themes of “criminal motivations, mitigation of responsibility, methods of
interrogation, the media and crime, and the death penalty (Engel, 2003, p. 349-350). This
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work is also good in helping students to imagine what it is like to face the criminal justice
system from a position of “profound inequality and oppression” (Engel, 2003, p. 350). In
addition, Engel mentions that teaming this book with the film version of To Kill a
Mockingbird would also be beneficial in examining similar themes of race and justice
and the different approaches to it. Engel notes that in his class, the students were asked to
compare the film and the novel, and this gave them an added appreciation to the depth
offered by literature, as well as the students feeling they were given a treat by being able
to watch a film. However, Engel cautions against using film to supplement literature, as it
does not offer the depth of context or character development that is necessary for
developing narrative imagination (Engel, 2003, p. 350).
The second literary work Engel discusses using in criminal justice education is
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1962). This novel is a
commentary on Soviet society and can be used to reflect incarceration and how it can
break a person’s spirit. The story is set in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s, which is
considerably harsher conditions than is found in modern prison, and describes a single
day in the life of an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. The struggles of the
prisoners in this novel are analogous to those faced by prisoners in modern prisons today.
Topics of prisoners struggling to maintain dignity within a dehumanizing institution, as
well as the role of religion in prisoners attempting to find solace in prison is also explored
within the novel (Engel, 2003, p. 350).
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Engel also suggests using The Trial by Franz Kafka (1998) to illustrate to students
what it might feel like to confront the bureaucracy of the criminal justice system. In his
class, Engel suggests that students consider how Joseph K. constantly feels lost and
bewildered by the procedures of a legal process in which he does not know the rules.
Students are also encouraged to imagine what it would be like to be charged with a crime
when you have very little to no knowledge of how the legal system works (Engel, 2003,
p. 350). Students of criminal justice will be implementing and enforcing the complicated
regulations and laws in their professional careers and need to be sensitive to the fact that
many of the people with whom they interact will not know how to navigate the criminal
justice system (Engel, 2003, p. 350). Kafka’s work is also useful as a discussion of the
trial process, rights of the accused, and the procedures of a legal process.
To explore the theme of nihilism, criminal behavior, and guilt, Engel uses Crime
and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866) in his criminal justice classes. The story
follows Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student from St.
Petersburg, who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for
her money. After Raskolnikov murders the pawnbroker and her half-sister who walked in
on the crime, he escapes without leaving any evidence or witnesses to link him to the
crime. However, his sense of guilt over performing the crime haunts him for the
remainder of the story. Because this story focuses mostly on the protagonists’ sense of
guilt after committing the “perfect crime” it serves as an excellent illustration, in Engel’s
opinion, of criminal behavior and guilt (Engel, 2003, p. 351). Engel also notes that the
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film Rope can be used in conjunction with Crime and Punishment because it explores
similar themes. Engel concludes that these two works have even more resonance when
compared to recent school shootings such as Columbine (Engel, 2003, p. 351).
To discuss various theories on crime, Engel suggests using Truman Capote’s “true
crime” novel In Cold Blood (1965) and Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery”
(1948). Capote’s novel is, in Engel’s (2003) opinion, very useful in criminal justice
curriculum because it allows the reader to identify with both the victims and the
perpetrators (p. 351). In addition, Capote’s work can be utilized to explore psychological
and sociological theories of crime. Furthermore, this book contains a very thought
provoking section on the death penalty which, according to Engel (2003) forces students
to examine whether “mitigating circumstances” should be taken into account during the
sentencing process (p. 351). Similarly, the short story “The Lottery,” while not explicitly
about the criminal justice system can also be utilized in the criminal justice curriculum to
discuss Durkheim’s account of the social function of crime and punishment. This is
because within the story, the townspeople’s ritualistic “criminal” behavior is intended to
maintain social solidarity (Engel, 2003, p. 351).
Another short story that Engel (2003) suggests is “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan
Glaspell (1920). This story allows students to investigate a number of themes including
criminal investigation, battered women’s syndrome, and the role of women on juries (p.
351). Even though the role of the jury in this short story is metaphorical, the women still
deliberate and make a judgment on the case of whether or not their neighbor is guilty of a
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crime. Engel notes that this can open up discussion in a criminal justice class on the role
of women serving as jurors and how not until 1975 with the court case Taylor v.
Louisiana was excluding women from jury pools declared unconstitutional by the U.S.
Supreme Court. Engel suggests coupling the reading of this short story with the film A
Question of Silence, which examines various issues of women in the justice system from
a feminist perspective and generates thought provoking discussions about insanity,
criminal responsibility, and sexual discrimination (Engel, 2003, p. 352).
The final literary work that Engel suggests using in criminal justice curriculum is
Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (1955). This story
examines the theme of nihilism and crime. The story follows a family that goes on
vacation to Florida, even though the grandmother wants to go to Tennessee for vacation.
The grandmother notes at the beginning of the story that the notorious killer “the misfit”
is loose in Florida and the family should go nowhere near him. However, the family
while on their trip swerves off a deserted road and ends up in a ditch where a vehicle of
men, led by “the misfit” approaches them and the entire family is murdered. The
grandmother begs for her life and when this has no effect, begins to preach about Jesus to
“the misfit.” The man becomes enraged and doubts the legitimacy of Christianity because
he sees no real purpose for why he is alive. In the end, the grandmother tries to comfort
“the misfit” and is shot and killed. Engel (2003) utilizes this short story in his criminal
justice curriculum to make comparisons with the previous stories on themes of religion,
crime, and redemption (p. 352).
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This list of novels by Engel are not conclusive, and Engel notes in his article that
many other novels, short stories, and films could be used within criminal justice
curriculum to foster the humanistic side of criminal justice. In addition, Engel notes the
importance of creating a balanced combination between literature and social science
research in a well-rounded liberal education (Engel, 2003, p. 352). Similar to Hirschel
and McNair’s class, Engel’s class introduces main theoretical perspectives and empirical
evidence on each theme that is explored in the literature, thus allowing the student to link
the specific concept with the experiences and situations that the characters experience in
the literary work. Engel links the social science aspects of the material in different ways
according to the classes that he teaches. For example, in a senior seminar, he had his
students write research papers on criminal justice themes that were going to be discussed
in class, and had them present and then relate the research to the themes within the novel
(Engel, 2003, p. 352). In comparison, when teaching an Introduction to Criminal Justice
class, Engel introduces the social science material and then asks his students to analyze
the main characters and plot using the specified theories/theme. This is useful to not only
help students engage in critical thinking, but helps to concretize theories on crime and
makes it possible for students to better retain the material (Engel, 2003, p. 353).
In order to evaluate the students comprehension in his class, Engel (2003) utilized
a variety of methods. One way was to have his students write and present research papers
on themes explored throughout the literature. Another method utilized is essay exams and
short quizzes to ensure that students are keeping up with the readings. Short reflection
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papers are also a method utilized by Engel to evaluate his student’s comprehension in his
class (Engel, 2003). Engel also suggests using short reflection papers on the readings to
offer thought provoking questions to students. For example, Engel asks his students if
they are lead to identify with the criminals in certain scenes of a story, and if so, how they
feel about identifying with a cold-blooded killer. This type of evaluation also gauges
whether or not students are engaging in critical thinking and perspective taking.
Engel concludes that there are several benefits to teaching literature in the
criminal justice curriculum. Novels, films, and short stories can be utilized to arouse a
student’s empathy for both the victim and the suspect, and offers the ability to see from
either one of these perspectives (Engel, 2003). In addition, literature helps students to
develop practical wisdom and consider how the criminal justice system deals with the
characters in the novels; they are forced to reflect, make judgments, and justify their
decisions (Engel, 2003). However, while Engel notes the benefits of utilizing literature in
the criminal justice curriculum, he cautions that it is meant to supplement, not supplant,
the traditional approach of teaching criminal justice.
Conclusion
While criminal justice education is a vastly expanding field of study that has
begun to find prominence in the majority of America’s higher schools of learning, and is
generally accepted as an interdisciplinary field of study, it has focused primarily on the
social sciences and ignored the addition of the humanities in its curriculum. The addition
of humanities, literature specifically, to criminal justice education is not without
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precedence and classes including literature can be found in the majority of other
disciplines including law school. The addition of literature in criminal justice education
assists students to become better professionals by fostering narrative perspective and
practical wisdom that helps them to foster moral awareness and encourage empathy that
will help them become leaders who make appropriate decisions that affect human beings.
If lawyers and criminal justice students are to truly be public servants, then they must feel
a connection with the entire public and put themselves in the shoes of others. The
development of practical wisdom in criminal justice students would also help students to
deliberate and make difficult judgments in situations where there is a great deal of
discretion regarding their professional behavior. It is important for criminal justice
professionals to understand the laws that define permitted and prohibited behavior, but it
is equally important to teach them how to make tough decisions in situations where
simply knowing the rules is not enough. While a general education cannot give students
the real life experiences to handle situations they will meet in their professional lives,
reading stories can prepare them for those experiences and help them to understand how
their reactions will affect individuals in specific circumstances.
Literature is helpful in criminal justice because it gives students a broader
philosophical basis for work in their professions and helpful metaphors for understanding
theories and concepts in their discipline. In addition, literature is a helpful tool to
illustrate theories and concepts of criminal justice in a way that helps students think
critically about the information they are learning and better retain that material. Other
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disciplines have already accepted the need for and integrated courses that utilize literature
to teach concepts of their discipline, clearly criminal justice, as a prominent and vital
field of study, would benefit from it as well.
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Chapter 3
PROJECT PROCESS
Introduction
A desire by the author to integrate the study of literature and criminal justice was
the inspiration for this project. The author has a background in both English and Criminal
Justice studies, and found that there were beneficial connections between the two
disciplines that greatly increased perspective, comprehension of concepts, and thoughtful
insights into not only criminal justice concepts and theories, but into the characters in
literature as well. It is the author’s belief that other students from all disciplines would
benefit from an interdisciplinary study of criminal justice and literature.
Curriculum Proposal
This curriculum is designed to provide students with the opportunity to better
understand the impact of the criminal justice system on people’s lives, and to enhance
students’ critical thinking by offering a humanities based view of criminal justice through
the examination of major works of literature from a criminal justice standpoint. The
analysis of the impact of real life crime on crime in literature will also be an emphasis of
this seminar. This curriculum is intended to be closer to Hirschel and McNair’s
experimental class of 1981, which successfully combined the study of literature and the
teaching of criminal justice concepts. However, it will also include the concepts and ideas
of fostering practical wisdom and narrative imagination put forth in Engel’s (2003)
article, and Smith’s (1987) article as well. The class is designed to be instructed at
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schools of higher learning (community colleges/universities) as an elective for criminal
justice coursework and as a cross-referenced class for English coursework.
Course Content
This course will be comprehensive rather than selective in nature, and introduce a
variety of topics in criminal justice in relation to several works of literature. The main
objective of this course is to introduce students to selected criminal justice theories and
concepts through various literary works in such a way that two main goals will be
realized. First, that students of both Humanities and Criminal Justice will have the
opportunity to view criminal justice theories both objectively and imaginatively, and
would acquire not only the facts about these theories and concepts, but also understand
the humanistic and moral side of the criminal justice system. Second, that students would
develop a sense of empathy and critical thinking skills in order to aid in the development
of practical wisdom and a narrative imagination that would eventually help students make
difficult judgments and decisions in those situations where there is no clearly defined
answer.
Rather than focusing on a specific theme of criminal justice within several works
of literature, this curriculum will be similar to a survey of criminal justice courses and
examine several themes of criminal justice in various works of literature. To obtain this
objective, the course is divided into six sections: Criminal Justice in Ancient Times, The
Justice System, Criminological Theories and Violent Crime in Literature, Elements of an
Offender, Special Victims, and Crimes of the Future.
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This course will utilize several works of literature including novels, short stories,
and poems. Because of the large amount of literature that may be utilized to illustrate a
number of topics in criminal justice, this curriculum suggests a list of core texts that will
consistently be used in the instruction of the class, as well as a list of alternate texts that
may be switched or added into the instruction. When choosing literary works that would
be used within this curriculum, special attention was given to making sure that they
would be supported by three types of material: first, literary criticism would exist on the
chosen works; second, there would be criminal justice research on the chosen topics; and
third, the works would have related research from law, sociology, history, psychology,
etc.
Learning Objectives
For each instructional unit, student-learning objectives are established. In his
book, Preparing Instructional Objectives, Robert Mager (1984) stresses that creating
clearly defined learning objectives are important to create a clear path of instruction; to
inform students what they are expected to learn, thus allowing instructors to test whether
important instructional outcomes have been accomplished; and also to provide students
with clearly defined objectives that they can work towards accomplishing using their own
methods. There are two main requirements of an objective; they are specific, and they are
measurable. The objective states what a learner would do as a result of the instruction
they receive. Therefore, the objectives for each unit in this curriculum will be learner
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focused, and use active, observable verbs, to measure whether or not students were able
to meet all of the objectives and proceed with the next instruction.
The observable verbs that will be used in creating the instructional objectives for
this course are based on Benjamin Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy. The major idea of this
taxonomy is that cognitive learning exists at many different levels of complexity, and
they are all important to a rich educational experience. Bloom describes six different
levels of cognition: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and
evaluation (Bloom, 1956). These levels are arranged in hierarchical order with
knowledge being the lowest level of cognition, and the levels are understood to be
successive, so one level must be mastered before the next level of cognition can be
reached. Knowledge refers to the rote recall of specific information and may include
verbs like know, memorize, recall, list, identify, name, and recite among others (Bloom,
1956). Comprehension requires the student to translate, comprehend, or interpret
information based on prior learning and may include verbs such as explain, summarize,
compare, interpret, and give examples (Bloom, 1956). The third level of Bloom’s
cognitive domain is application. This involves using knowledge to solve problems or
complete a task and common applications of the verbs include apply, demonstrate,
practice, use and employ (Bloom, 1956). Analysis is the fourth level of cognition and
mandates that the learner be able to break the whole into parts in order to categorize,
compare, contrast, examine, relate, and distinguish. Synthesis is the opposite of analysis
and is where the learner uses parts to make a creative, new whole. Synthesis verbs
include compose, propose, assemble, formulate, construct, and organize (Bloom, 1956).
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The final and highest level of cognition is evaluation and it is highly creative. It is in
evaluation where the student makes value statements and verbs include evaluate, deduce,
assess, critique, judge, and appraise (Bloom, 1956). Taking Bloom’s Taxonomy into
consideration, this curriculum will challenge students at each level of cognition through
lesson objectives and terminal objectives.
Teaching Methodology
This curriculum will be focused towards adult learning rather than child
education. Malcolm Knowles (1970) devised a set of four assumptions that differentiated
adults from children learners. Self-concept (the idea that adults are independent and selfdirecting), experience (the concept that adult learners draw from the experiences in their
lives), readiness to learn (adults are at a different and more advanced developmental stage
than children), and orientation to learning (adults place more value into practically
applying the knowledge they learn) (p. 39). In essence, adult education is not simply
imparting knowledge to students, but assisting them to acquire or enhance their skills,
understanding, and dispositions that they will then practically apply as professionals in
society (Mezirow, 2000, p. 26).
This class is designed to provide students with the opportunity to better
understand the impact of the criminal justice system on people’s lives, and to help
students foster an awareness of moral values and the ability to engage in “perspectivetaking” in order to make judgments in situations where there is no clear “right” or
“wrong” action that may be taken. In order to accomplish this, Jack Mezirow’s
Transformation Theory of learning will be applied as the main teaching strategy.
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Transformation Theory is an expansion of Jerome Bruner’s (1996) four modes of
making meaning: (1) establishing, shaping, and maintaining intersubjectivity; (2)
interpreting particulars within a normative context and dealing with meaning relative to
obligations, standards, conformities and deviations; (3) relating behavior, statements, and
events to the action taken; (4) making propositions, which is the application of rules and
conceptual systems to achieve “decontextualized meanings,” including “rules of
inference and logic and such distinctions as whole-part, object-attribute, and identityotherness” (as cited in Mezirow, 2000). Transformation theory adds a fifth mode of
making meaning: becoming aware of one’s own assumptions and expectations and those
of others and assessing the relevance of these beliefs for making an interpretation
(Mezirow, 2000). In other words, Transformation Theory focuses on how one learns to
negotiate and act upon one’s own purposes, feelings, values, and meanings, rather than
reasoning and acting based on those we have uncritically assimilated from others
(Mezirow, 2000, p. 8). Transformation learning is a way of problem solving through
defining a problem, redefining a problem, or reframing the problem altogether. This will
be accomplished within this class by having students read literature that will challenge
their beliefs and understandings of criminal justice concepts, the individuals who come
into contact with the criminal justice system, and the situations in which the characters of
the story are placed, in order to better prepare students to make difficult judgments in
their future professions when disparate circumstances arise.
Based on Kitchener’s (1983) three levels of cognitive processing (cognition,
metacognition, and epistemic), Mezirow (2000) states that transformative learning
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pertains to epistemic cognition, which explains how humans monitor their problem
solving when engaged in situations where there is no absolute correct solution, and this
only emerges in late adolescence and into adult years (p. 5). In adulthood, informed
decisions are based not only on the awareness of the source and context of feelings,
values, and personal knowledge, but also a critical reflection of the validity of their
assumptions or premises. Therefore, the instruction of this course will be focused on
challenging the beliefs of students on criminal justice concepts and theories in order to
develop their critical thinking skills.
Transformative learning occurs in four main ways according to Mezirow (2000):
by elaborating existing frames of reference, by learning new frames of reference, by
transforming points of view, or by transforming habits of the mind (p. 19). The first step
of transformation occurs after some form of meaning becomes clarified following a
disorienting dilemma (loss of a job, divorce, return to school), self examination involving
strong feelings (fear, anger, guilt, shame), critical assessment of assumptions, recognition
that one’s discontent and process of transformation are shared, and even the provisional
trying of new roles (Mezirow, 2000, p. 22). This opens the door for transformative
learning to occur which may be either objective or subjective reframing. Objective
reframing involves the critical reflection of the assumptions of others that are
encountered within a narrative or in task-oriented problem solving (Mezirow, 2000;
Revans, 1982). Subjective reframing involves the critical self-reflection of one’s own
assumptions about a narrative (utilizing a reflective insight from someone else’s story and
applying it to one’s own experience), a system (social, economic, or educational),
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feelings and interpersonal relations, and an organization or workplace (Mezirow, 2000, p.
23). The narratives of literature are an excellent way to encourage students to actively
engage in transformative learning.
When conducting this course, class discussion will play a major role in the
education process. Students will be asked tough questions on works of literature that may
emotionally threaten their own assumptions, beliefs, and viewpoints (for example, asking
a student if they identify with the criminal in a story). Imagination is a crucial point of
transformative learning theory. It is through imagination that one is able to examine
alternative interpretations of an experience by “walking around in someone else’s shoes,”
and experiencing another’s point of view. Students in this course will be encouraged to
become critically reflective of their own assumptions and the assumptions of others,
encouraged to more fully and freely engage in discourse devoted to searching for a
common understanding or justification of an interpretation or belief, and to become more
effective in taking action on their reflective judgments. It is through this method that the
students will be able to come to understand their role and responsibility in the criminal
justice system, as well as their role in constructing knowledge that will make them more
effective professionals in the society they will serve.
Unit 1: Criminal Justice in Ancient Times
Crime and its punishment are among the oldest problems faced by humankind.
Many of the laws that we utilize every day are not inventions of modern society; rather
they are laws that were developed in ancient times to address the same issues of crime
that we face today. In this section, students should gain a historical perspective on crime
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and should understand the influence of religion and morality on determining laws in a
society. Three main works of literature will be utilized in this section: The Code of
Hammurabi, The Bible and the Qur’an.
The Code of Hammurabi
This work was chosen because it was the first known set of written laws, having
been written circa 1792- 1750 B.C. It was created by Prince Hammurabi of Babylon and
is considered by most scholars to be an almost exact reproduction of the laws of Sumer.
There are 282 laws that were carved into stone tablets, emphasizing property rights, and
speaking of issues like theft, ownership, and interpersonal violence (Reichel, 2005, p.
108). The laws from both Sumer and Babylon were based on retribution and listed laws
concerning both individual revenge and state-administered revenge. It is important to
note that Sumer was the first to write down their laws, thereby creating what is referred to
as a “sociological or collective fiction” wherein the law controls not only those who
administer the law, but creates the illusion that the written law is what exacts retribution,
not the humans who enforce the law (Hooker, 1996). There are several laws in the Code
of Hammurabi that deal specifically with crimes that are still dealt with in today’s
modern society. For example, one of the laws states, “if any one is committing a robbery
and is caught, then he shall be put to death” (law 22, Code of Hammurabi, trans. 1910).
Clearly ancient Babylonia and Sumer had harsher punishment for those committing the
crime of robbery than we have in modern society, but this shows that the crime of
individuals stealing other people’s property has been around since ancient times. This
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ancient work offers an excellent basis to examine the laws that developed in surrounding
cultures and religions, and how these laws are still being utilized in society’s laws today.
The Bible
It is no exaggeration to state that the English Bible is, next to Shakespeare’s
works, considered the greatest work in English literature. As the famous author C.S.
Lewis (1958) once wrote, “the Bible, since it is after all literature, cannot properly be
read except as literature; and the different parts of it as the different sorts of literature
they are” (p. 3). Considering this, the Bible is a valid piece of ancient literature that has
retained its importance even in today’s modern society, and most importantly in
America’s criminal justice system.
The Ten Commandments, listed in Exodus 20:3-17 and written around 1280 B.C.,
give a central core of morality and were a major advance compared with other legal
codes during that time such as the Code of Hammurabi. The Ten Commandments serve
as the basis of the “Judeo-Christian ethics” that are referred to so frequently in America’s
courtrooms. The first five commandments deal directly with the Jewish religion, while
the last five commandments are rewrites of judicial laws in the Code of Hammurabi into
more condensed forms. The last five commandments order against committing murder,
committing adultery, stealing, giving false testimony, and coveting the things of others
(Exodus 20:13-17 New International Version). These rules form the basic laws that we
still see in society today.
The Bible is also very clear concerning rules against Homicide. Israelite law
demanded that any man who intentionally killed another man should be put to death. This
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was based on the belief that only the murderer’s death and shedding of his blood was
adequate compensation to Yaweh (God) for stealing the life of another who belonged to
Him (Johnson, Wolfe, & Jones, 2008, p. 24). This approach to homicide reflects the
Israelite doctrine of lex talionis, the “eye for an eye” principle that was also the basis for
the Code of Hammurabi. However, the Bible also recognized different levels of homicide
(intentional vs. accidental), and set into place cities of refuge where a man who
unintentionally killed someone could flee to in order to save their life from avenging
family members. This law made it possible to examine criminal intent and proximate
cause of a crime, aspects that we still examine in today’s modern criminal justice system.
The Bible also directly discusses laws pertaining to assault, kidnapping, violent
animals, and even the concept of punishment through restitution (which was in direct
contrast to the laws of Sumer and Babylonia that had existed prior) (Exodus 21; Exodus
22:9). Additionally, the Bible is an important piece of literature to examine in this
curriculum because it defined sin as not only a violation against man-made laws and
rulers, but as an offense against morality. This identification with crime and sin meant
that offenses against human laws had the added transgression of being against divine
commands as well (Johnson, Wolfe, & Jones, 2008, p. 9).
The Qur’an
Selected passages from the Qur’an will also be examined in this unit to discuss
criminal justice in ancient times. This work was chosen because it is a piece of religious
literature that has greatly influenced criminal justice systems in many countries. The
Qur’an was written in sixth century A.D. and several similarities can be seen between the
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laws contained within it, the laws written in the Bible and the Code of Hammurabi.
Interestingly, the laws that make up Shari’a law are a mixture of the laws written within
the Qur’an and from Sunna, the custom or practices of the Prophet Muhammad as they
were recorded in the hadith.
Even though the laws found in the Qur’an are considerably harsher than the laws
of modern Western society and even most laws listed within the Old Testament of the
Bible, many similarities can be drawn between the laws and basic concepts of criminal
justice that were written and implemented in cultures prior to the creation of the Qur’an.
The Qur’an’s laws also rested on the lex talionis belief of an “eye for an eye” that were
seen in the Hammurabi laws and laws of the Bible. For example, in book 2 verse 178 of
the Qur’an, it says that the punishment for the murder of a free man is the life of a free
man, slave for a slave, and female for a female. There are also laws similar to the Bible
that pertain to not bearing false testimony, the innocence of those who kill in selfdefense, and laws pertaining to property and theft.
Unit 1 Assessment
At the end of this weeklong unit, students will be given a five-question in-class
quiz to ensure that they have kept up on the assigned readings, as well as to measure if
students have reached the learning objectives for the unit. After completion of this unit,
students will identify and differentiate between historical and religious writings, and
match them to the cultures that produced the laws. Students will also define what crime
is, how society defines crime, and state who makes the laws within a society. Finally,
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students will relate laws written within the readings to laws that are utilized in America’s
legal system.
Unit 2: The Justice System: Policing, Courts, and Incarceration
It is important that students, whether from a criminal justice or humanities
background, understand the process of the criminal justice system that is composed of its
component agencies: police, courts, and corrections. The components of the criminal
justice system may work very well together, but they may also work against each other.
This system may be extremely confusing and daunting to an individual confronted by the
procedures of a legal process. In this unit, students will view the intricacies and
intangibles of criminality and the criminal justice system, as well as imagine what it
would be like to confront the confusing bureaucracy of the criminal justice system as
described through the story The Trial by Franz Kafka. Additionally, students will read
Leo Tolstoy’s short story “God Sees the Truth, But Waits” to examine the effects of
incarceration on a person’s spirit and the struggles faced by those who are given life-inprison sentences.
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The German novel, The Trial by Franz Kafka, introduces readers into a surreal
world where a person can be arrested and undergo a trial without ever being informed of
what they supposedly did wrong. The story focuses upon Joseph K., a thirty-year-old
bank officer who lives alone in a boardinghouse in a European city with an oppressive
government and who wakes up one morning to find two strange men outside his door.
The two men inform Joseph K. that he is under arrest, and they refuse to show him a
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warrant or explain to Joseph K. what crime he is accused of doing. Soon after, an
inspector arrives with three other men, and the inspector conducts an official proceeding
in the room of another tenant, Fraulein Burstner. Despite the fact that Joseph K.
maintains his innocence during this proceeding, and even asks who is accusing him of
wrongdoing and which government office is investigating him, the inspector simply tells
K. that he knows very little about his case and cannot provide the details of who is
charging him or what he is being charged for. Joseph K. expresses his wish to contact a
government lawyer, to which the inspector says that K. could do so, but it would be a
waste of time since Joseph is under arrest and nothing would change that fact. Joseph K.
is allowed to resume his daily activities and life, despite being under arrest (though he is
escorted by the three men who work at his bank). The story becomes increasingly
frustrating as he is told to report to court for the first series of hearings. When K. arrives
at the address, he discovers that the building is a tenement house and the court is being
held in one of the rooms. When K. finally arrives at court, the magistrate scolds him for
his tardiness, causing K. to reach his wit’s end and harangue the court, to which he
receives applause from spectators seated before the bench. Joseph K. seeks help from his
uncle’s friend who is a skilled defense attorney, as well as from a painter who has learned
about the inner workings of the justice system. Their advice to him is that he can only
win through gaining a temporary acquittal, then a new trial, then another temporary
acquittal, then another new trial, and so on. Even a priest, who strangely offers a sermon
only to Joseph K., states that K. should accept things the way they are and not fight them,
that what is important is not that everything the court says be true, but that the court’s
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action is necessary. Six months pass with the case stagnating when two men wearing top
hats arrive at K.’s boardinghouse, take him into a stone quarry outside the city, and
plunge a butcher knife into his heart.
This surreal world of Joseph K. is the perfect setting to ask students to imagine
how it would feel to be charged with a crime when one has very little knowledge of the
law or how the overall legal system works. Suspects in the beginning of the justice
process when dealing directly with police and the investigation process can be lost and
bewildered in the bureaucracy of the justice system.
This story is useful in engaging students in conversation about the law and the
legal system, how confusing that legal system may be to those unfamiliar with its
workings, and even the concept of a criminal being a victim of society and its laws.
“God Sees the Truth, But Waits” by Leo Tolstoy
This short story by Tolstoy is a great commentary on Soviet society and can be
used to help students reflect on the way that incarceration can break a person’s spirit, and
the hopelessness and isolation that prisoners feel with life in prison sentences. The
protagonist of the story, Ivan Dmitrich Aksionov, is a happy merchant living in a town in
Russia with his wife and children. Aksionov leaves for a business trip where he meets up
with a fellow merchant and they travel together. After staying in an inn for a night,
Aksionov awakes the next morning and is arrested by the local police who accuse him of
a murder he did not commit. The police find a bloody knife in Aksionov’s bag and he is
sentenced to Siberia for a life sentence. The reader sees Aksionov lose his family (his
wife not believing his innocence), his petition to the Czar turned down, and eventually he
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gives up all hope; “Aksionov wrote no more petitions; gave up all hope, and only prayed
to God” (Tolstoy, 1872, para. 21 ). Aksionov spends twenty-six years in the Siberian
prison where he preached and sang in the prison-church on Sundays, was respected by
the fellow-prisoners and called “Grandfather” or “The Saint”, and even became the
spokesman for the prisoners to the prison authorities, and the peacemaker among the
prisoners. This is similar to occurrences in actual prisons where some prisoners who have
been given life sentences, turn to religion, become leaders within the prison, and try to
help those around them. However, this short story has a tragic end when the man who
really committed the murder Aksionov was falsely accused of (the merchant he had
traveled with) ends up in prison, begs Aksionov’s forgiveness, and the man confesses to
the authorities that Aksionov is innocent of the crime in which he has been imprisoned.
Unfortunately, Aksionov dies before being released to go home. However, he dies in
peace after forgiving the merchant for blaming him for the crime.
This story, while depressing, allows students to see the mental, physical, and
emotional effects that prison can have upon individuals, especially when they believe
they have been wrongly accused of a crime. Additionally, it opens discussion to the
prisoner appeal process, religion within prisons, as well as an open discussion concerning
the death penalty versus a life sentence.
Unit 2 Assessment
At the end of this two-week unit, students will be given a five-question in-class
quiz to ensure that they have been keeping up on the assigned readings. After completion
of this unit, students will be able to describe the components that make up the American
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criminal justice system, as well as list the main functions of each component agency.
Students will identify the rights of the accused (Miranda Rights, due process) in the
American criminal justice system, and compare and contrast this to the rights and justice
in the selected works of literature. Additionally, students will be able to define pertinent
literary terms such as: expressionism, nihilism, Kafkaesque, point of view in literature,
and foreshadowing. Finally, students will consider and discuss if the death penalty is
more humane than life in prison, and whether they believe either sentence should be
utilized.
Unit 3: Criminological Theories/ Violent Crimes in Literature
This unit will span over a four-week class period and will address general
categories of crime, and more specifically, violent crime that can be found within works
of literature. Additionally, criminological theories will be presented within this unit in
order for students to examine theories on the causation of crime, and actively apply these
theories to the criminal acts of the characters that they read. This unit will be divided into
three main topics of crime: homicide, assault and battery/domestic abuse, and rape.
Lesson 1-Homicide
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Truman Capote’s 1965 novel In Cold Blood was a new classification of fiction, or
“true fiction” in which historical realities were combined with fictional devices to recreate actual events in an explorative and imaginative way. Capote had read a newspaper
story about the real life murder of the Clutter family in a small Kansas town and
interviewed the convicted killers in prison in order to write this “true fiction” novel.
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This true fiction tells the story of how Mr. and Mrs. Clutter and their two teenage
children are brutally murdered in their small town home. The two perpetrators of the
crime flee to Mexico while investigators keep reaching dead ends in the investigation.
Eventually the two men (Dick Hickock and Perry Smith) run out of money and return to
the states where news of the murder case has reached Hickock’s old cellmate (Floyd)
who is convinced that Dick Hickock is responsible for the crime. Floyd tells the
authorities and an elaborate manhunt begins. Dick and Perry are eventually caught in Las
Vegas after a police officer recognizes their license plate, and the two perpetrators
confess to the murders, after which they have a trial and are given the death sentence. The
book finishes by following Dick and Perry as they languish in Death Row during a fiveyear appeals process, and finally meet their execution.
The narration of the story switches between two alternating views. That of the
Clutters, and the two young killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. The story follows the
day of the murder of the Clutter family, the discovery of the bodies, the investigation of
the crime and ultimate capture of the criminals, and finally ends with the trial and
execution of the convicted killers. Through the alternating views of the victims of the
crime and the perpetrators of the crime, Capote offers the reader an interesting experience
of being able to relate to all the parties involved in this heinous crime. One cannot read
this story without feeling some identification with both the victims and the perpetrators.
Capote was able to humanize the killers in the story by telling about their upbringings,
personality quirks, and struggles in a way that can sometimes make them seem almost
likable. When reading this story, students are faced with themes of: human nature and
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evil; justice and punishment; nature versus nurture; and fate versus free will. This work
also allows students to explore psychological and sociological theories of criminal
behavior, and apply it to the story in order to theorize why Hickock and Smith committed
such a heinous crime.
Lesson 2- Assault and Battery/Domestic Abuse
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane
To examine issues of assault and battery, as well as domestic abuse, students will
read the novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane. This work is considered
the first literary work of American Naturalism and Impressionism. The story opens with
Jimmie, a young boy, leading a street fight against an opposing neighborhood gang. Pete,
a teenager who is a casual acquaintance and simply wanted to fight, rescues Jimmie from
several boys beating him. Jimmie’s father walks by, sees his son fighting, and proceeds to
start kicking both the boys involved in the fight. The fight breaks up and Jimmie’s father
beats on his son as they walk to their poor tenement housing in New York City. It is there
that we are introduced to Jimmie’s older sister Maggie, little brother Tommie, and Mary
his drunken and vicious mother. The evening displays a typical night in their house with
both the mother and father yelling and abusing both each other and their children, and
raging until they both pass out in a drunken stupor. Even Jimmie is involved with the
abuse of his parents and his siblings.
Time passes in the novel and we are told that both the younger brother Tommie,
and the father die, leaving Jimmie as the “man of the house.” Jimmie follows his father’s
example by hardening into an aggressive, sneering, drunken, and abusive youth who has
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had several run-ins with the police. This is not surprising since we are told in the story
that his mother is also well known to the police and the magistrate of the court. Maggie,
in contrast, seems immune to the poverty and corrupting influence around her. She is
described in the story as being a beautiful and hardworking girl, who is both hopeful and
naïve. However, Maggie’s downfall begins when Pete returns to the story and takes an
interest in Maggie and the two begin to date. Maggie is seduced by Pete’s bravado and
good looks. Maggie believes that Pete will give her a chance at a life full of wealth,
culture, and ultimately an escape from the misery of her childhood. It is assumed in the
story, though the author never clearly states, that Maggie and Pete have been sleeping
together, and Jimmie and his mother tell Maggie that she has gone to the devil and is no
longer welcome in their home. Pete eventually leaves Maggie in favor of Nellie, a woman
of supposed sophistication (though it is implied she might be a high-end prostitute) who
sneers at Maggie and calls her “a little pale thing with no spirit.” Abandoned, Maggie
attempts to return home, but her family rejects her due to her “reputation” and she is cast
out on the street.
The narrative of the story becomes a series of scenes separated by passages of
time in which we are shown a prostitute who is unnamed, but assumed to be Maggie,
wandering the streets of New York, pathetic, rejected, and drifting into progressively
worse neighborhoods until she reaches the river where she is followed by a grotesque and
dirty man. We are then shown a scene in which Pete is badly drunk in a bar surrounded
by women, he passes out after giving Nellie the rest of the money in his pocket, and she
abandons him on the floor. The novel ends with Jimmie giving his mother the news that
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Maggie’s dead body has been found and his mother lamenting the death of her ruined
child to which the mother exclaims, ironically, that she forgives her.
This story offers students an opportunity to view and apply some of the theories
of crime that they have studied (labeling theory, social disorganization) to the story of
Maggie. Themes of socioeconomic status, family influence and abuse, prostitution,
women’s life and work, and sexual discrimination can be found throughout this novella.
Lesson 3- Rape
“The Trial” by George Chambers
To examine the violent crime of rape, students will read the short story “The
Trial” found in George Chambers 1977 book Null Set and Other Stories. This story
concerns the thoughts of a rape victim as she testifies at her rapist’s trial. It is written in
short, episodic paragraphs, in which we are given glimpses into the victim’s memory and
the language of the courtroom. Bel Smith, a nineteen-year-old woman, accused George
Washington Jr., of raping her in her apartment and forcing her to commit other sexual
acts. She is testifying at the trial but the defense attorney maneuvers her into admitting
things about her past that damage her credibility with the jury. The jury discovers that Bel
has two illegitimate children and was living with one of the fathers when the rape
occurred. Additionally, the defense lawyer harasses Bel until she confesses that she had
previously been raped by several members of a motorcycle gang, but did not report the
rape to the police, and in fact had continued to allow the gang members to wash their
motorcycles at her home. Because of Bel’s admissions about her past, along with false
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alibis from the defendant’s family, the jury gives her rapist a not-guilty verdict. This sad
story ends with Bel blaming herself and her own unworthiness for her rape.
This story is beneficial to students because it shows them occurrences that have
happened in real rape cases. Prior to the late 1970s, facts about a woman’s past sexual
history and conduct were commonly focused upon in court cases dealing with rape. This
story will also allow open dialogue for discussing “rape myths” and false assumptions
about rape that still permeates our society today. Additionally, students will be able to
examine how court rulings, and most specifically rape shield statutes, have changed since
this story was written to better protect the victims of rape during court trials.
Unit 3 Assessment
After completion of this unit, students will distinguish between the different types
of crime (felony, misdemeanor), as well as the degree to which those crimes can be
classified and prosecuted. Students will recall the various criminological theories they
learn in the course and will apply these theories to interpret characters actions within the
literature. Students will identify common “rape myths” and critique current rape shield
statutes as to how well they protect victims from these “myths” affecting them in court
cases. Additionally, students will define literary terms relevant to this unit such as nonfiction novel, naturalism, impressionism, and Social Darwinism. Assessment of this unit
will be combined with an overall assessment of the first half of this course to assess the
student’s general knowledge and understanding of the information discussed and read in
the course. The exam will be formatted using multiple choice questions, and short
answer/essay questions.
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Unit 4: Elements of an Offender
This unit will extend over three weeks of class instruction and will allow students
to examine the variables of class, race, gender, age, and mental status in relation to crime.
Students will be expected to apply the criminological theories they learned in the first
half of the course in the readings. This unit will be divided into three sections: race,
gender/mental status, and juvenile delinquency.
Lesson 1- Race
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
This story, set in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama in 1932-1935, is an
examination of the themes of race, class, and justice within American society. The story
follows three young children (Scout, Jem, and Dill) as they spend their summer holiday
trying to learn more about their reclusive and mysterious neighbor Arthur “Boo” Radley.
The children become caught up in an unfolding drama of the trial of Tom Robinson, a
black man accused of raping Mayella Ewell (a white woman), and daughter of a poor
white man Robert E. Lee “Bob” Ewell. Scout and Jem’s father Atticus Finch, a lawyer,
agrees to defend Tom Robinson and is intent on ensuring that the black man receives a
fair trial and is brought to justice. The readers of the story are introduced to the members
of the town, both black and white, and the anger and ostracism that the Finch family
receives from the “white” community for defending a “black” man. The story is narrated
by Scout from adulthood as a reminiscence of her childhood, and the reader sees her
mature in the story from her own ideas of right and wrong, to finally understanding that
the world is not ‘black and white” and eventually becomes open minded to individual
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differences when she finally understands another person’s point of view. In the end of the
story, the children watch the conclusion of the trial from the “colored section” as the jury
decides that Tom Robinson is indeed guilty of raping Mayella, despite strong evidence
that points to the contrary.
This work is an excellent way to help students imagine what it would be like to
face the criminal justice system from a position of extreme inequality and oppression
based simply on the color of one’s skin. In addition, throughout various points in this
novel, students will encounter themes of the media and crime, methods in the courtroom,
mob justice, and the death penalty. By having students compare and contrast the court
case in To Kill a Mockingbird with the real life case of the Scottsboro Boys, they will
also gain a perspective on the real life race struggles that happened during that time, and
how some of those struggles can still be seen today.
Lesson 2- Gender/Mental Status
“A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell
This is an excellent story to allow students to confront a variety of themes
regarding women and the justice system. This short story, written in 1917, tells the story
of a farmer, John Wright, who has been found strangled in his bed; his wife is arrested for
the murder. The following day the sheriff, county attorney, as well as the sheriff’s wife
and a neighbor couple, return to the Wright’s house. The women are there to pick out
some clothes for the accused woman, while the men are there to investigate the crime
scene. Even though the purpose of the story is to penetrate the motive behind Mrs.
Wright’s murder of her husband, the story follows the women of the group, rather than
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the men. Through the women’s investigation of Mrs. Wright’s (Minnie’s) “trifles”
throughout her house, they discover the story of Minnie’s abuse by her husband, how
Minnie’s pet canary had it’s neck broken (assumingly by her abusive husband), and the
discovery of knots and erratic stitching in Minnie’s quilt. All of these clues point the
women to the fact that Minnie choked and killed her abusive husband, the same way that
he choked and killed her pet bird. Ironically, the men who went to the house to find
evidence of a crime find nothing, while the women find all the evidence that point to
Minnie’s crime but decide “as a jury of her peers” that Minnie is not responsible for her
actions, and any woman under those circumstances would have done the same thing.
This story allows students to examine how women were excluded from juries
until 1975 with the court case of Taylor v. Louisiana, an open discussion about gender
and the justice system, as well as common criminal defenses used in trial cases such as
common law provocation, extreme emotional disturbance, and battered woman’s defense.
Additionally, students will be able to examine the link between animal abuse and
domestic violence.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
To explore themes of criminal culpability, and more specifically the different
excuses that may be used in a court to explain why a defendant cannot be held
responsible for their criminal actions, Of Mice and Men will be read. This novel by John
Steinbeck is set during the Great Depression of the 1930s in the Salinas Valley of
California. It follows the story of George Milton, a small, sharp, and witted ranch hand,
and his physically large but mentally slow friend Lennie Small. George has taken care of
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Lennie since the death of Lennie’s Aunt Clara, and the two travel together and work a
variety of jobs at ranches and farms in the hope that one day they will have enough
money to “live off the land” and be their own bosses. We find out that Lennie has a short
attention span and acts very similar to a child; because of his mental limitations, Lennie is
always getting into trouble (he has a habit of petting soft things, such as dead mice or the
dress of a woman) and getting George and him fired from their jobs. The story follows
George and Lennie as they start their new job at a ranch in Weeds where we meet Curley,
the son of the boss who is a small, vicious bully, who picks on Lennie and George, as
well as Curly’s wife who is constantly trying to seduce the other workers on the ranch.
In the story we learn that Lennie is very dependant on George, and George takes
care of Lennie like he would a big baby. This story reaches a tragic end when Lennie is
playing with a small puppy in the barn and by accidentally handling it too roughly, has
broken its neck. As he tries to hide the body of the dead animal because he knows George
will be upset, Curly’s wife enters the barn. She strikes up a conversation with Lennie and
when she hears about how he loves to pet soft things, invites him to pet her soft hair.
However, Lennie pets her hair too roughly (similar to the mice and puppy that he has
killed) and when Curly’s wife begins to struggle and yell, Lennie panics and accidentally
breaks her neck. Once Lennie realizes that he has killed the woman he flees, and the body
is discovered by another ranch hand. Curly rages and orders a search party to find Lennie
and “shoot him in the guts” not so much because he is upset at his wife’s murder, but
because he sees this as a way to truly get back at Lennie for breaking his hand in a fight.
George knows that Lennie would never harm someone on purpose and only wants to save
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Lennie from being lynched by a mob because he knows Curly will not be content to
simply have Lennie arrested and put into prison. The final scene occurs with Lennie and
George sitting by a riverbank discussing their dream one last time as George shoots
Lennie in the back of the head.
This story addresses themes of mens rea, diminished capacity and diminished
responsibility as an excuse for not being held responsible for a crime, and a discussion of
animal abuse. A discussion of the Substantial Capacity Test that is used to determine
whether a person lacks the mental capacity needed to understand the wrongfulness of the
act they have performed, or to conform their behavior to the requirements of the law can
also be viewed through this story. Students will be asked to argue whether or not they
believe Lennie can be held responsible for the murder of Curly’s wife, and whether or not
they believe George should be charged with Lennie’s murder at the end of the book.
Lesson 3- Juvenile Delinquency
“How I contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Corrections and Began My
Life Over Again” by Joyce Carol Oates
This short story written in 1969, addresses themes of gender, class, and age in
relation to crime. The story is written in a disjointed and disorganized manner from the
perspective of the narrator, a sixteen year-old girl, who is writing an essay for her English
class at a private school. We learn from her narration that at fifteen years old the narrator,
a child of one of Detroit’s most affluent suburbs, escalates her habits of shoplifting by
stealing a pair of gloves from a storeowner who is friends with her father. For reasons
that she cannot herself recognize or understand, the narrator had started to shoplift as a
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child despite having easily been able to pay for the items that she stole. Despite being
caught by the storeowner, the situation is “swept under the rug” and the narrator never
gets the attention that she wanted from her parents. Unable to find the love that she
craves from her parents, the narrator runs away to the Detroit ghetto where she is taken in
by a dirty prostitute and her drug addict pimp and lover. These two strange figures
become the young girl’s mother and father figures, though they are just as unloving and
destructive to her as her real parents are. The drug addict eventually becomes the young
girl’s lover and pimp, and she prostitutes herself until one day the man becomes tired of
her hysteria and turns her in to the police. While being held in the Detroit House of
Corrections, the girl is beaten by two other girls (one black, and one white, but both
street-hardened veterans incarcerated for more serious crimes), which finally breaks her
and she desperately wishes to finally return home. The young girl is finally released to go
back home, but from her disjointed notes at the end of the story it is evident that her life
is now in shambles.
Through an examination of this story, students will be able to discuss juvenile
delinquency theories (labeling theory, social disorganization theory, etc.) as well examine
the effects of peer pressure, gender bias of the system in labeling the usual female
delinquent as a runaway, promiscuous, and wayward, the violence found within juvenile
institutions, and the overall difficulty of changing the lives of juvenile’s who have been
labeled delinquents by others and themselves.
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The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
This young adult novel discusses issues of gang conflict, the tragedy that is
caused by violence, and the struggle of juveniles to find a personal identity among
oppressive social structures. In this story, Hinton tells the story of a group of seven
teenage boys in the 1960s who are growing up with few adults to care for them. The boys
are each other’s surrogate family and each of them are in turn very loyal to the gang they
belong to called the Greasers. Ponyboy Curtis is the youngest member of the gang (14),
and the narrator of the story. Ponyboy lives with his two brothers, Sodapop (16) who is a
high school drop out that works at a gas station and is into poker, and fighting; and Darrel
(20) who was a star football player and had plans for college until their parents died and
he had to support himself and his two brothers. Other members of the Greaser gang
include Dallas Winston (17) who is the toughest and meanest of the group; Two-Bit
Mathews (18) who has a long history of shoplifting, fighting, and always playing with a
switchblade knife; and Johnny Cade (16) who is best friends with Ponyboy and very quiet
and soft-spoken. The Greasers are an overall tight-knit group from the East Side
neighborhood in Oklahoma who get into trouble by stealing things, and occasionally
having gang fights with their rivals the “Socs.” The Socs are the wealthier West side kids
of the town who make trouble and fight but are more likely to have these crimes
overlooked due to their wealth and family connections.
The story The Outsiders begins in conflict as we see the Socs and Greasers
engage in gang fights and we learn that Johnny was seriously injured by a group of Socs
in a previous fight. The Greaser-Soc conflict escalates as Ponyboy, Johnny, and Two-Bit
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befriend and walk the Soc girls (Marcia and Cherry) to their house so they can drive them
home and several of the Socs confront the boys over the Soc girls. Later that night the
conflict escalates to a crisis when several Soc boys confront Johnny and Ponyboy in a
park and Johnny (fearing for his life) stabs one of the Soc boys. Ponyboy and Johnny flee
to Dallas who tells them to run away to the next town and hide in an abandoned church.
The boys disguise themselves and hideout in the church for four days. They are told by
Dallas that an all out Soc-Greaser war has developed and Johnny proposes turning
himself in because he acted in self-defense. The story reaches a climax when the boys
return to their hideout to discover it on fire with a group of school children trapped inside
the burning building. Ponyboy and Johnny rescue the trapped children, but Johnny
becomes seriously injured from the collapse of the burning building. The story takes a
tragic end as the Greasers and Socs have a huge rumble, which the Greaser’s win, but
upon rushing back to the hospital, they see Johnny die. Dallas is devastated by Johnny’s
death, robs a grocery store, and commits suicide-by-cop by provoking police fire by
pulling an unloaded gun.
This is an excellent story for students to discuss the criminological theory of
labeling and deviation, reckless containment theory, strain theory, and various social
control theories. Students will also be given the opportunity to discuss juvenile gangs, the
effects of social standing and money on the handling of a defendant, and a discussion on
suicide-by-cop.
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Unit 4 Assessment
After the completion of this unit, students will be given a ten-question quiz to
ensure that they have been keeping up on the assigned readings. After completion of this
unit, students will identify factors of an offender that have an influence on them in the
criminal justice system. Students will compare and contrast the issues of race in the
Scottsboro Boys case with the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird and relate this to current
issues of racial discrimination in the justice system. Additionally, students will list and
define common “excuses” argued by defense attorneys in court to escape criminal
culpability. At the end of this unit, students will also explain laws and court-accepted
defenses (battered woman’s syndrome/common law provocation) that are pertinent to
abused women who murder their husbands. Students will also be able to compare laws of
diminished capacity and responsibility with laws concerning juveniles, and assess the
concept of labeling theory and its affect on juvenile justice in relation to the two works of
literature that were read concerning juvenile delinquency.
Unit 5: Special Victims
Within the study of crime and the victims of crime, it is important that special
attention be paid to crimes that are perpetuated against those who are more vulnerable.
References to elder and animal abuse can be traced throughout Greek mythology, the
writings of Shakespeare, and even in modern literature, yet only within the last twenty
years has serious attention been given to these crimes. This unit will examine the topic of
crimes perpetuated against both the elderly and against animals within works of
literature.
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Lesson 1: Animal Abuse
“The Black Cat” by Edgar Alan Poe
This story begins with the narrator sitting in jail awaiting his execution that will
occur on the following day, for the brutal murder of his wife. The narrator tells the story
in flashback as a way to unburden his soul before his death. The narrator tells the reader
that he was born with a very docile and humane disposition that made him especially
fond of animals. He married at an early age and remarks that his wife had a similar love
of animals and they had several animals including “birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a
small monkey, and a cat” (Poe, 1903, p. 1). The cat is a large, entirely black creature
named Pluto (the Roman god of the underworld) and out of all the pets, was the
narrator’s favorite. However, the narrator tells the reader that after several years his
temperament began to change due to becoming an alcoholic. The narrator becomes
increasing moody, irritable, and begins to abuse his wife, as well as the other pets of the
house. The narrator recalls coming home drunk one night and becoming so enraged with
Pluto that he took a penknife from his waistcoat pocket and gouged one of the cat’s eyes
from its socket. The narrator then becomes irritated when the cat avoids him and one
morning, slipped a noose around Pluto’s neck and hung him from the tree. That same
night, his house burns down and all his worldly possessions are destroyed, but on the wall
where the head of his bed had rested was the figure of a giant cat with a rope around its
neck. The narrator recalls that he could not forget the image of the cat on the wall and felt
such a sense of loss that he began to search for a replacement. He finds a similar black
cat, though it had a white splotch on its chest, and brings it home with him. The cat
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instantly becomes a favorite of the narrator’s wife, but unfortunately, the narrator begins
to feel great hatred for the cat after discovering it had only one eye, and the white on its
chest resembled the gallows. The narrator’s madness reaches its peak when the man
accidentally murders his wife in a fit of rage when she stops him from killing the cat with
an axe. The narrator expresses no remorse after this action and thinks of different ways to
dispose of the body (cut it up and burn it, cast it into a well, bury it in the cellar floor,
pack into a box like merchandise) but ultimately decides on walling up the body in the
cellar. The narrator believes to have gotten away with the murder of his wife but is upset
by the disappearance of the cat. When the police search his house there is a muffled
sobbing, and howls that emanates from the wall where the body is hidden. The police tear
down the wall and discover the black cat sitting on the head of the corpse and the narrator
is consigned to the hangman.
Lesson 2: Elder Abuse
“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe
This famous short story by Edgar Allan Poe tells the reader a chilling story of the
murder of an elderly man. At the beginning of the tale, the narrator states that though he
has been accused of being insane the telling of his tale will prove that he is not. The
narrator then proceeds to explain in detail how and why he murdered the old man with
which he lived. He explains that he loved the old man, had never been wronged or
insulted by him, and did not want the old man’s gold. The narrator explains that he chose
to murder the old man due to his eye that was pale blue, with a film over it. The narrator
explains that very gradually he made up his mind to take the life of the old man and rid
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himself of the eye forever. The narrator continually denies that he is mad, based on the
fact that he has carried out his plan so carefully. He entered into the old man’s room
while he slept every night for a week, but stated that he did not kill the man because he
never caught a glimpse of the “evil eye.” On the eighth night, the narrator makes a noise
that awakes the old man. Neither the old man nor the murderer move for an entire hour.
Finally, the narrator shines a light upon the offending eye, and becomes so enraged that
he murders the old man. The narrator again expresses that he is not mad, stating the
precautions he took to conceal the body by dismembering it and hiding the body in the
floorboards. However, the police are called to the narrator’s house because the neighbors
reported a shout. The police find no signs of foul play in the house, and the narrator
(completely confident in his cleverness) invites them to sit and rest inside the old man’s
bedchambers. Before long, however, the narrator begins to hear a noise that sounds like a
beating heart. He becomes frantic, believing that the police will hear the noise and wants
the police to leave. The narrator becomes increasingly frantic and upset with the police
(believing they are merely toying with him) until he finally screams and tells the police to
lift the floorboards and find the body of the old man.
This chilling tale of murder discusses themes of cruelty violence, mental illness,
obsessive behavior, and elder abuse. Through the study of this short story, students will
be able to discuss issues of elder abuse and how these victims need more protection than
the average citizen does. Additionally, this story offers the opportunity to discuss police
interrogation and investigation.
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Unit 5 Assessment
After the completion of this two-week unit, students will be given a five-question
quiz to ensure that they have been keeping up on the assigned readings. After completion
of this unit, students will be able to define current laws concerning animal and elder
abuse. Students will also analyze the connections between violence towards animals and
violence towards humans and the significance of determining whether violence towards
pets should be considered an early warning sign of future violence. Additionally, students
will be able to define literary terms relevant to these stories including symbolism,
imagery, figurative language, and repetition. Students will be asked to recommend ways
to combat elder abuse and animal abuse, and bring awareness to the community of these
special victims.
Unit 6: Crimes of the Future: Where are we heading?
1984 by George Orwell
This dystopian novel by George Orwell follows the story of Winston Smith, a 39year-old man who works at the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth in England,
or as it is called at the time, Airstrip One. Airstrip One is part of Oceania, which is one of
three totalitarian superpowers that rule the world using extreme censorship and terror,
and it is led by Big Brother, which censors everyone’s behavior, including their thoughts.
Within the story, it is a crime to think any thoughts that might challenge the ruling
authority, thus the society employs thought police to maintain psychological surveillance
and eliminate any perceived threats. Winston, the protagonist of the story, becomes
disgusted with his oppressed life and secretly longs to join the fabled Brotherhood, which
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is a fabled group of underground rebels who are intent on overthrowing the government.
Winston meets and falls in love with a girl named Julia, who is also a rebel against the
controlling government, and they have an affair, which is considered a crime. One day,
while walking home, Winston encounters O’Brian, an inner party member who Winston
believes is really a member of the Brotherhood. Winston and Julia go to O’Brian’s house
together where they believe they are introduced into the Brotherhood, but O’Brian turns
out to really be a faithful member of the Inner-Party and it was really a trap. Winston and
Julia are sent to the Ministry of Love (though torture and brainwashing occur there)
which is a rehabilitation center for those who have been accused of thought crime.
Winston is separated from Julia and tortured until his beliefs coincide with those of the
Party and he truly believes that two plus two equals five. In the end, Winston denounces
everything he had believed in before, including memories of his childhood, and even his
love for Julia. Winston and Julia are released back into society after being “rehabilitated”
where Winston sits in a café, drinking Gin, waiting for the day that Big Brother finally
kills him.
Unit 6: Assessment
After completion of this unit, students will be given a five-question quiz to ensure
that they have been keeping up on the assigned readings. At the end of this unit, students
will be able to describe current technological strategies utilized by law enforcement to
combat crime. Students will analyze these strategies and address the issue of whether or
not they are a threat to individual freedoms and anonymity. Additionally, students will
discuss various Homeland Security measures that have been enacted since 9/11 and
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assess their effectiveness of combating terrorism at the risk of suspending personal
freedoms.
Concluding the Course
At the end of the course, students will be given a test that will assess their
retention and comprehension of the general knowledge and information discussed in the
second half of this course. The exam will be formatted using multiple choice questions,
short answer questions, and essay questions. Additionally, students will be asked to write
a 10-15 page paper. For this assignment, each student will choose a work of literature to
be approved by the professor, that is not being discussed class. Appropriate choices can
be either major works of literature (Dickens, Orwell, Victor Hugo, etc.), or short stories
(Faulkner, Hemingway, Hughes, etc.). Students will be asked to analyze the major types
of crime found within the book and analyze the characters, and overall plot of the story
based on criminological/literary theories. Students will also be encouraged to examine
whether there are any scenes in the book that lead them to identify with the criminal of
the story. In writing this paper, students are asked to truly consider whether they have
walked around in the shoes of the characters, and to reflect on perspectives of crime,
victims, and the lives of the criminal found in the book. Papers should be 10 to 15 pages,
double spaced, and be written in APA format, and will be evaluated based on
criminological and literary theories, the synthesis and analyses developed, as well as
grammar and syntax.
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Course Syllabus
A sample course syllabus can be found in appendix E, and lists the overall course
goals and objectives as well as the major themes that should be addressed within the
course. It should be noted that the works of literature listed to be read for each lesson and
overall unit are not requirements for implementing this course, but suggestions. There is a
wide variety of literature that discusses the topics of literature in this course, and
depending on the make-up of the individual class, or the time period in which it is taught,
certain works of literature may be more effective in the overall instruction of this class
than others. Literary works may be added or removed from each unit based on the needs
of the instructor or the student.
Lesson Plan Design
Each lesson plan is designed to be taught with 15-20 minutes of whole group
instruction. Following group instruction, students will be given discussion questions to
promote in class discussion on the literature read, as well as selected topics in criminal
justice. The lesson plans included in this curriculum will include instructional goals,
performance objectives, the rationale for the instruction of each specific topic, the lesson
content to be discussed, as well as the materials needed for each lessons assessment.
There are a total of twelve lessons to be taught covering six units. Some lessons will
require lengthier whole group instruction in order to meet the objectives of the lesson.
This course is designed to take place over a typical sixteen-week college semester. The
lessons are located in the appendix, as well as relevant handouts needed for the lessons,
suggested quiz questions, and topics for discussion.
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Chapter 4
CONCLUSION
Criminal justice education has found prominence within the majority of
America’s schools of higher learning since its massive growth in the late 1960s and early
1970s due to the enactment of the Law Enforcement Education Program (LEEP).
However, despite being generally accepted as an interdisciplinary field of study, criminal
justice education has yet to accept courses that integrate the study of humanities, and
more specifically literature, with the study of criminal justice.
The review of literature found that the inclusion of literature in criminal justice
education would not be without precedence. Classes could be found in the majority of
other disciplines that teach “and literature” courses. These disciplines included
Philosophy, History, Mathematics, Business, Religion, Science, Psychology, and even
Health Sciences. Most importantly, the literature showed that there was already a strong
connection between law schools and the study of literature. The study of literature is an
important tool through which students may foster an awareness of moral values, and the
ability to engage in “perspective-taking” to encourage empathy that helps students to
make decisions that affect human beings.
Despite the experimental class by Hirschel and McNair in 1982 that successfully
combined the study of literature with criminal justice, the concept of combining these two
fields of study has practically vanished. This curriculum is based upon the concept that
literature is an important tool by which criminal justice students and professionals can
learn how to make tough decisions in situations where simply knowing the rules is not
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enough. A general education cannot give students the real life experiences to handle the
situations that they will meet in their professional lives, but reading stories can prepare
them for those experiences and help them to understand how their reactions will affect
individuals in specific circumstances.
This curriculum will utilize the teaching methodology of Jack Mezirow’s (2000)
Transformation Theory in order to encourage students to become aware of their own
assumptions and expectations in comparison to others, and to assess the relevance of
these beliefs to make an interpretation. By having students read literature to illustrate
criminal justice concepts, they will challenge their own personal beliefs and
understandings of criminal justice concepts, the individuals who come into contact with
the criminal justice system, as well as their personal reactions to the actions of characters
within the stories they will read.
Designed to be instructed at schools of higher learning as an elective for criminal
justice students and as a cross-referenced class for English students, this course allows
instructors to bridge the gap between the study of criminal justice and the humanities. It
is this author’s hope that this curriculum will help students to come to understand their
role and responsibility in the criminal justice system, as well as their role in constructing
knowledge that will make them better individuals and more effective professionals in the
society they will serve.
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APPENDICES
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APPENDIX A
Criminal Justice ###- Criminal Justice in Literature
University Name:
Division Name:
Date:
Instructor: Jayme Powell
Office:
Office Hours:
Telephone:
E-mail Address:
“After all, if you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you also have to
believe that no one was ever improved by a book”- Irving Kristol
“Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb,
science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill”- Barbara W. Tuchman
Course Description:
This seminar is designed to provide students with the opportunity to better understand the
impact of the criminal justice system on people’s lives, and to help enhance students’
critical thinking by offering a humanities-based view of criminal justice through
examining major works of literature from a criminal justice standpoint. The analysis of
the impact of crime in literature and in the media on real life crime will also be an
emphasis in this seminar. Special attention will be given to developing each student’s
sense of empathy and skills of critical thinking, in order to aid in the development of
practical wisdom.
Course Objectives:
1. Students will evaluate a wide range of topics in criminal justice that are evident
within major works of literature.
2. Students will recognize and assess the importance and relevancy of
criminological theories in works of literature.
3. Students will relate criminal justice concepts and theories both imaginatively
and objectively to characters and plots in major works of literature.
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4. Students will demonstrate a competent level of understanding of the various
criminological theories and be able to identify the basic conceptualizations of
each theory, and be able to explain their significance in the causation of crime.
5. Students will compare and contrast various types of crime and critically
analyze the impact that it has on all individuals involved (offender, victim, and
justice system).
Themes Addressed in the Course






The nature and extent of crime and its representation in literature.
The historical foundations of crime, and how society defines crime.
Criminological theories (sociological, classical, positivist,
radical/Marxist/feminist) and their impact on how we view crime.
Elements that affect an offender and elements of an offender.
Special victims of crimes and what makes these crimes especially heinous.
The future of crime and criminal justice as represented in literature.
Teaching Methodology
This course will be conducted in a seminar format. Students will be expected to read an
extensive amount of literature in the form of novels, short stories, and poems. Each class
meeting will provide a forum for dialogue, discussion, and critical thinking. Participation
in class discussions is crucial and required. Each student will be required to present
information from the weekly readings and offer unique insight on the various topics of
discussion.
Required Texts:
Capote, T. (1965). In cold blood. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Chambers, G. (1977).Ø Null set and other stories. New York, NY: Random House.
Hinton, S.E. (1997). The Outsiders. New York, NY: Puffin Books
Lee, H. (1988). To kill a mockingbird. New York, NY: Warner Books.
Orwell, G. (1961). 1984. New York, NY: Signet Classics.
Steinbeck, J. (1994). Of mice and men. New York, NY: Penguin Books.
Texts Available Online:
Crane, S. (1896). Maggie: A girl of the streets. Available from www.onlineliterature.com/crane/maggie/
Glaspell, S. (1992). “A jury of her peers.” Available from
www.learner.org/interactives/literature/story/fulltext.html
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Kafka, F. (1937). The Trial. Available from www.online-literature.com/franz-kafka/thetrial/
Poe, E. (1903). “The black cat.” Available from www.online-literature.com/poe/24/
Poe, E. (1903). “The tell-tale heart.” Available from www.online-literature.com/poe/44
Tolstoy, L. (1872). “God Sees the Truth, But Waits.” Available from www.onlineliterature.com/tolstoy/2061/
Recommended Reading:
Miller, J.M., Schreck, C.J., and Tewksbury, R. (2006). Criminological Theory: A brief
introduction. Boston, MA: Pearson.
Course Requirements & Assignments
1. Participation – 20% of your final grade
2. Exams (2) - 30% of your final grade (15% each)
3. Reading Quizzes (5) - 15% of your final grade (3% each)
4. Crime in Literature Paper- 35% of your final grade
Participation
This class requires A LOT of discussion, so you will be evaluated on the amount and
quality of your participation during class and each week on WebCT/blackboard. The
grading process for participation will be √+ (A); √ (B); √- (C). The grade will be based on
the amount and quality of your online and in-class participation. Remember: the beautiful
thing about literature is that it is open to a very wide variety of perspectives because each
individual will read a story and view it in regards to their own life experiences. Your
experiences and participation are valued. I encourage open discussion and the
contribution of a variety of opinions and comments. This being said, respect for your
fellow students is required. You do not have to agree with every comment that you hear
or the argument that another student makes, but you must remember that everyone is
entitled to have his or her own opinion heard in the environment of open discourse.
Exams 30% of your final grade (2@ 15% each).
There will be two exams offered during the semester. The dates indicate which days the
exam will be offered. The first exam will cover information learned from the first half of
class. The second exam will NOT be cumulative. These exams are designed to assess
your general knowledge of the information we have discussed and read in this course.
Exams will be formatted using multiple choice questions, and short answer/essay
questions.
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Crime in Literature Paper: 35% of your final grade. (10-15 pgs)
final.
Due on day of
For this assignment, each student will choose a work of literature to be approved by the
professor, that is not being discussed class. Appropriate choices can be either major
works of literature (Dickens, Orwell, Victor Hugo, etc.), or short stories (Faulkner,
Hemingway, Hughes, etc.). Students will be asked to analyze the major types of crime
found within the book and analyze the characters, and overall plot of the story based on
criminological/literary theories. Students are also encouraged to examine whether there
are any scenes in the book that lead them to identify with the criminal of the story. In
writing this paper, students are asked to truly consider whether they have walked around
in the shoes of the characters, and to reflect on perspectives of crime, victims, and the
lives of the criminal found in the book. Papers should be 10 to 15 pages, double spaced,
and be written in APA format. Papers will be evaluated based on criminological and
literary theories, the synthesis and analyses developed, as well as grammar and syntax.
Attendance
Attendance is not only mandatory in this class but absolutely necessary. Without you- the
student- in this class, the discussions and thus the class will die without you being present
and actively participating. You need to come to each class prepared and ready to engage
in lively discussion with your fellow classmates. I will note attendance in accordance to
your participation in each class session. An excessive amount of absences (4 or more)
will result in your grade being automatically reduced by as much as a letter grade. Grade
reduction will be left up to the discretion of the instructor. Please attempt to attend each
class session. However, as life tends to throw some expected things at all of us, such as
illness, work obligations, and other emergencies, please let me know by email or a phone
call if you need to miss a class session.
Grading Range:
A=94-100
A-= 90-93
B+= 87-89
B= 84-86
B-= 80-83
C+= 77-79
C=74-76
C-= 70-73
D+= 67-69
D= 64-66
D-= 60-63
F= 59 and below
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Grading Policy:
There will be no extra credit options available for this course. I believe that offering extra
credit is unfair to those students who have done the regular work and turned it in on time.
In addition, extra credit is discouraged because it means that students are graded on
different criteria which in my opinion is unfair. I may offer the opportunity for students to
receive “bonus points,” but these opportunities will be left to my discretion.
Students may turn in their papers late, at a penalty of 2 points for every day they are late
(not counting the weekend). Papers will NOT BE ACCEPTED if they are more than 5
working days, or a week late.
Make up exams will only be offered for students who have approved their absence with
me prior to the day of the exam, and will only be given for adequate reasons. In addition,
make-up exams must be taken within 2 days of the original test date.
I will be more than happy to keep you updated on your progress throughout the course. I
will update each individual student of their progress in the course half way through the
class, but feel free to email me and I will make your results available to you as soon as
reasonably possible.
**If you feel that you have been graded unfairly, you may appeal your grade to me in
writing. This gives you an opportunity to present your case for a better grade fully,
clearly, and I will have a better opportunity to reflect on your argument.
Help and Special Needs
If you find that you are having difficulties with the course material, you are encouraged
to come and speak with me as soon as possible. Accommodations for special needs can
be made. These needs do need to be brought to my attention as soon as possible.
Academic Integrity and Honesty
Plagiarism is wrong and will not be tolerated. Students are responsible for the honesty of
their work, the appropriate citation of sources, and to respect everyone’s academic
endeavors. You would not like someone stealing your work, so do not steal someone
else’s.
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Classroom Etiquette:
TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONES: Out of courtesy and respect for all of us in the
classroom, your cell phones and pagers should be either turned off or on silent. If it “goes
off” during class, I will ask that you turn it off immediately. If the problem persists then
you will be asked to leave. In addition, “texting” during class is rude and will not be
tolerated.
Be Punctual: If you are going to be more than 15 minutes late, or have to leave early
from a class session and know ahead of time, please let me know and sit near the door to
minimize the disruption. Any students arriving 15 or more minutes late to class without
prior approval by the instructor will not be counted in attendance.
Eating: I do allow food to be eaten in my class but please be respectful to your fellow
students and refrain from eating food that makes a lot of noise (opening a bag of chips,
slurping, and extra crunchy foods).
Sleeping in Class: Please no napping in my classroom. If you feel the need to take a nap,
go home and take a nap.
Be Nice: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point
of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it”- Atticus Finch from To
Kill a Mockingbird. Your fellow students have life experiences that will make their
perspectives, opinions, and arguments unique. During discussions there is no
“right/wrong” answer, only a different opinion or view. This being said, please respect
each other. Debate is encouraged but I expect you all to be kind, courteous, and
professional in your demeanor towards each other.
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Course Assignments and Reading Schedule
****Please complete the readings PRIOR to that week’s meetings!****
Week
Topics
2
Introduction and Orientation: What is
Crime??
Criminal Justice in Ancient Times
3
The Justice System: Policing
4
The Justice System: Courts/ Incarceration
5
Criminological Theories/ Violent Crime in
Literature: Homicide
6
Homicide Cont…
7
VCIL (cont): Assault and Battery,
Domestic Abuse
8
VCIL (cont.): Rape
9
Elements of an offender: Race.
1
10 Elements (cont.): Gender/ Mental Status
11 Elements (cont.): Juvenile Delinquency
Readings & Assignments
-The Bible (handout)
-Qur’an (handout)
-Code of Hammurabi (handout)
The Trial- Kafka, Franz
Chps.1-5
The Trial- Chps. 6-10
“God Sees the Truth, But
Waits”-Tolstoy, Leo
In Cold Blood-Capote, Truman
Pt 1 & 2
In Cold Blood- Capote, Truman
Pt. 3 & 4
Maggie: A Girl of the StreetsCrane, Stephen
Crime in Literature Paper Pt.
1 Due
“The Trial”- by Chambers,
George (handout)
Exam 1:
To Kill a Mockingbird- by Lee,
Harper
-Of Mice and Men- Steinbeck,
John
-“A Jury of Her Peers”Glaspell, Susan
-“How I contemplated the
World from the Detroit House
of Correction and Began My
Life Over Again”- Oates, Joyce
Carol (handout)
The Outsiders-Hinton, S.E.
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12 Special Victims: Animals
“The Black Cat”- Edgar Allan
Poe
13 Special Victims: Elderly
“The Tell-Tale Heart”- Edgar
Allan Poe.
Crime in Literature Paper Pt.
2 Due
1984- Orwell, George
14 Crimes of the Future: Where are we
heading???
15 Concluding the Course
Exam 2:
16 FINALS
Crime in Literature Paper
Due
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APPENDIX B
LESSON PLANS
COURSE TITLE: Criminal Justice in Literature
WEEK: 2
UNIT I: Criminal Justice in Ancient Times
LESSON: 1
SPECIFIC TOPIC: The History of Crime and the Origin of the Laws That Govern
Society.
Literature: Bible, Qur’an, Code of Hammurabi
INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL: Students will gain a historical perspective on crime and
will understand the influence of religion and morality on determining laws in a society
through the examination of three main historical/religious works of literature: the Code of
Hammurabi, Bible, and Qur’an.
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE: After completion of this unit, students will identify
and differentiate between historical and religious writings, and match them to the cultures
that produced the laws. Students will also define what crime is, how society defines
crime, as well as determine who makes the laws within a society. Students will also relate
laws written within the readings to laws that are utilized in America’s legal system.
RATIONALE: Knowledge of history and the rationale and fundamental assumptions
that support our penology are important in a criminal justice education. Students need to
gain an understanding of the historical perspective on crime and view current laws in
society in relation to criminal justice practices of past time periods and cultures. Utilizing
literature such as the Bible, the Qur’an, and the Code of Hammurabi will allow students
to view the influence of religion and morality on determining laws in a society.
LESSON CONTENT:
I. Opening Questions:
 What is crime?
 How does society define crime?
 Who makes laws? Are laws decided by the government? Are they decided by the
people?
 Do you believe religion plays a vital role in determining what crime is?
 What makes Literature different from Fiction? Do you believe we can classify the
Bible and the Qur’an as literature based on this definition?
II: Teaching Points
 Literature is a very broad term that encompasses many different types of writing
or spoken materials. In addition, literary writing necessitates that the author
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imparts to his or her readers a feeling, emotion, and lasting memory that will
retain its literary value throughout time. It is character based and encourages deep
innovative thinking that provokes intelligent thoughts and can challenge its
readers to alter their beliefs (Rich, 1949).
III: The Code of Hammurabi (Reading Handout)
 First known written laws 1700 B.C.
 Created by Prince Hammurabi of Babylon, but are considered an almost exact
reproduction of the laws of Sumer.
 These laws were given through the power of rulers, as well as the Babylonian god
Bel.
 Laws from both Sumer and then Babylon were based on retribution and were
between individual revenge and state-administered revenge. However, it was
Sumer who first wrote down their laws. In this way, the law assumed an
independent character from the centralized authority that administered it. By
writing down the laws, this created what is referred to as a “sociological or
collective fiction” wherein the law controls not only those who administer the
law, but creates the “illusion” that the law itself is what exacts retribution, not
humans (www.wsu.edu).
 Code of Hammurabi’s second law regards having the accused jump into a river. If
the accused sinks, then the accuser takes his house. If the accused survives and
floats, then the accuser is put to death and the accused gets the accusers house.
This is similar to the water test used throughout Europe and even in the Salem
witch trials in the U.S. to determine if a woman was a witch. However, with the
witch trials in Salem, if the accused floated then they were guilty, and if they
drowned, they were innocent.
III: The Bible (Handout)
 The Ten Commandments- Exodus 20: 3-17: these commandments give a central
core of morality and were a major advance from the other legal codes during that
time such as the Code of Hammurabi. The Ten Commandments serve as the basis
of the “Judeo- Christian ethics” that are referred to so frequently in America’s
courtrooms.
 Exodus 20:13- speaks against committing murder.
 Exodus 20: 14- speaks against committing adultery.
 Exodus 20:15- speaks against stealing.
 Exodus 20:16- speaks against giving false testimony.
 Exodus 20:17- speaks against coveting the things of others.
These rules can still be seen in society today.
 Exodus 21:12- This section outlines different levels of murder (intentional vs.
accidental). Deuteronomy 19: outlines cities of refuge a man who unintentionally
kills his neighbor may flee to in order to save his life.
 Exodus 21:16- contains the laws against kidnapping.
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
Exodus 21:18- laws against assault. This law also lists that restitution should be
made for loss of time of the injured and that the offender must see that the victim
is completely healed.
 Exodus 21: 23-25- This passage outlines the concept that punishment should fit
the crime.
 Exodus 21: 28-36- This passage deals with animal attacks and is similar to
today’s laws concerning aggressive animals. If an animal is violent and has a
history of violence, the owner is held responsible and the animal is put to death.
 Exodus 22- this chapter outlines laws that pertain to property. For example, if a
thief broke into a house and was then killed by the owner, the owner was not
guilty of murder as long as it was during the night. However, if the owner killed
the thief during the day then the owner of the house was guilty of committing
murder.
 Exodus 22:9- this verse discusses the concept of punishment through restitution,
and is in direct contrast to the laws of Sumer and Babylonia that had existed
previously.
 Exodus 23: this chapter discusses laws pertaining to justice- do not bear false
witness or be a malicious witness; do not side with a particular group in a lawsuit
or show favoritism in a case.
 Deuteronomy 16:18- Appointing judges that are impartial.
 Deuteronomy 21- Discusses a multitude of laws including atonement for an
unsolved murder, laws for dealing with a rebellious son, and laws pertaining to
dealing with the body of a man who was guilty of a capital offense and hung on a
tree.
 The laws in the Old Testament were handed down directly from God to his
people. However, it is important to note that many of the more archaic religious
laws changed with the New Testament, and have continued to change since.
IV: The Qur’an (Handout)
 Several similarities can be seen between the laws in the Qur’an and the Code of
Hammurabi/The Bible.
 The Qur’an is believed to be the words and laws written down by the prophet
Muhammad as they were given to him by God through the angel Gabriel.
 2:48 The system of justice ought to be such that nobody might provide any benefit
to the criminal, nor the recommendation of any person be accepted, nor the
criminal be released through bribery, nor anybody could help him to escape
punishment by any other means.
 2:178- this passage is the “eye for an eye” belief that we see in the Code of
Hammurabi, and the Bible. Punishment for murder is the freeman for the freeman,
the slave for the slave, the female for a female. The laws in the Qur’an are almost
exact duplicates of codes 196, 197, 198, 229, and 230.
 2:188- also outlined laws against taking another’s property.
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

Provisions were made in Qur’an so that if the victim’s family pardoned the
assailant, he would only have to pay a monetary fine for the death, and not pay
with his life.
It is important to note that Shari’ah law, or Islamic Law, is based on two main
sources: the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet, which is the book of the life of
Muhammad and how he lived. In addition, these laws have not changed or altered
since they were written, and it is in fact considered a sin to change the laws at all.
EVALUATION PROCEDURES:
At the conclusion of this unit, students will be given a five-question quiz in which
they will identify and differentiate between historical and religious writings, and match
them to the cultures that produced the laws. Students will also define what crime is, how
society defines crime, as well as determine who makes the laws within a society.
Additionally, students will relate laws written within the readings to laws that are utilized
in America’s legal system. Material covered in this Unit will also be evaluated in a
midterm exam during the 8th week of instruction.
MATERIALS AND AIDES:
1. Reading Handout
Code of Hammurabi
1. If any one ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he cannot prove it, then he
that ensnared him shall be put to death.
2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap
into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if
the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had
brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take
possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.
3. If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove
what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death.
4. If he satisfy the elders to impose a fine of grain or money, he shall receive the fine
that the action produces.
5. If a judge try a case, reach a decision, and present his judgment in writing; if later
error shall appear in his decision, and it be through his own fault, then he shall pay twelve
times the fine set by him in the case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judge's
bench, and never again shall he sit there to render judgment.
6. If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and
also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death.
7. If any one buy from the son or the slave of another man, without witnesses or a
contract, silver or gold, a male or female slave, an ox or a sheep, an ass or anything, or if
he take it in charge, he is considered a thief and shall be put to death.
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8. If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat if it belong to a god or to
the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold therefore; if they belonged to a freed man of the
king he shall pay tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to
death.
9. If any one lose an article, and find it in the possession of another: if the person in
whose possession the thing is found say "A merchant sold it to me, I paid for it before
witnesses," and if the owner of the thing say, "I will bring witnesses who know my
property," then shall the purchaser bring the merchant who sold it to him, and the
witnesses before whom he bought it, and the owner shall bring witnesses who can
identify his property. The judge shall examine their testimony -- both of the witnesses
before whom the price was paid, and of the witnesses who identify the lost article on
oath. The merchant is then proved to be a thief and shall be put to death. The owner of
the lost article receives his property, and he who bought it receives the money he paid
from the estate of the merchant.
10. If the purchaser does not bring the merchant and the witnesses before whom he
bought the article, but its owner bring witnesses who identify it, then the buyer is the thief
and shall be put to death, and the owner receive the lost article.
11. If the owner do not bring witnesses to identify the lost article, he is an evil-doer, he
has traduced, and shall be put to death.
12. If the witnesses be not at hand, then shall the judge set a limit, at the expiration of
six months. If his witnesses have not appeared within the six months, he is an evil-doer,
and shall bear the fine of the pending case.
14. If any one steal the minor son of another, he shall be put to death.
15. If any one take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or female slave of a
freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to death.
16. If any one receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of the court, or of a
freedman, and does not bring it out at the public proclamation of the major domus, the
master of the house shall be put to death.
17. If any one find runaway male or female slaves in the open country and bring them to
their masters, the master of the slaves shall pay him two shekels of silver.
18. If the slave will not give the name of the master, the finder shall bring him to the
palace; a further investigation must follow, and the slave shall be returned to his master.
19. If he hold the slaves in his house, and they are caught there, he shall be put to death.
20. If the slave that he caught run away from him, then shall he swear to the owners of
the slave, and he is free of all blame.
21. If any one break a hole into a house (break in to steal), he shall be put to death
before that hole and be buried.
22. If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death.
23. If the robber is not caught, then shall he who was robbed claim under oath the
amount of his loss; then shall the community, and . . . on whose ground and territory and
in whose domain it was compensate him for the goods stolen.
24. If persons are stolen, then shall the community and . . . pay one mina of silver to
their relatives.
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25. If fire break out in a house, and some one who comes to put it out cast his eye upon
the property of the owner of the house, and take the property of the master of the house,
he shall be thrown into that self-same fire.
26. If a chieftain or a man (common soldier), who has been ordered to go upon the
king's highway for war does not go, but hires a mercenary, if he withholds the
compensation, then shall this officer or man be put to death, and he who represented him
shall take possession of his house.
27. If a chieftain or man be caught in the misfortune of the king (captured in battle), and
if his fields and garden be given to another and he take possession, if he return and
reaches his place, his field and garden shall be returned to him, he shall take it over again.
28. If a chieftain or a man be caught in the misfortune of a king, if his son is able to
enter into possession, then the field and garden shall be given to him, he shall take over
the fee of his father.
29. If his son is still young, and can not take possession, a third of the field and garden
shall be given to his mother, and she shall bring him up.
30. If a chieftain or a man leave his house, garden, and field and hires it out, and some
one else takes possession of his house, garden, and field and uses it for three years: if the
first owner return and claims his house, garden, and field, it shall not be given to him, but
he who has taken possession of it and used it shall continue to use it.
28. If a man take a woman to wife, but have no intercourse with her, this woman is no
wife to him.
129. If a man's wife be surprised (in flagrante delicto) with another man, both shall be
tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his
slaves.
130. If a man violate the wife (betrothed or child-wife) of another man, who has never
known a man, and still lives in her father's house, and sleep with her and be surprised,
this man shall be put to death, but the wife is blameless.
131. If a man bring a charge against one's wife, but she is not surprised with another
man, she must take an oath and then may return to her house.
132. If the "finger is pointed" at a man's wife about another man, but she is not caught
sleeping with the other man, she shall jump into the river for her husband.
133. If a man is taken prisoner in war, and there is a sustenance in his house, but his
wife leave house and court, and go to another house: because this wife did not keep her
court, and went to another house, she shall be judicially condemned and thrown into the
water.
134. If any one be captured in war and there is not sustenance in his house, if then his
wife go to another house this woman shall be held blameless.
135. If a man be taken prisoner in war and there be no sustenance in his house and his
wife go to another house and bear children; and if later her husband return and come to
his home: then this wife shall return to her husband, but the children follow their father.
136. If any one leave his house, run away, and then his wife go to another house, if then
he return, and wishes to take his wife back: because he fled from his home and ran away,
the wife of this runaway shall not return to her husband.
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137. If a man wish to separate from a woman who has borne him children, or from his
wife who has borne him children: then he shall give that wife her dowry, and a part of the
usufruct of field, garden, and property, so that she can rear her children. When she has
brought up her children, a portion of all that is given to the children, equal as that of one
son, shall be given to her. She may then marry the man of her heart.
138. If a man wishes to separate from his wife who has borne him no children, he shall
give her the amount of her purchase money and the dowry which she brought from her
father's house, and let her go.
139. If there was no purchase price he shall give her one mina of gold as a gift of
release.
140. If he be a freed man he shall give her one-third of a mina of gold.
141. If a man's wife, who lives in his house, wishes to leave it, plunges into debt, tries to
ruin her house, neglects her husband, and is judicially convicted: if her husband offer her
release, she may go on her way, and he gives her nothing as a gift of release. If her
husband does not wish to release her, and if he take another wife, she shall remain as
servant in her husband's house.
142. If a woman quarrel with her husband, and say: "You are not congenial to me," the
reasons for her prejudice must be presented. If she is guiltless, and there is no fault on her
part, but he leaves and neglects her, then no guilt attaches to this woman, she shall take
her dowry and go back to her father's house.
143. If she is not innocent, but leaves her husband, and ruins her house, neglecting her
husband, this woman shall be cast into the water.
144. If a man take a wife and this woman give her husband a maid-servant, and she bear
him children, but this man wishes to take another wife, this shall not be permitted to him;
he shall not take a second wife.
145. If a man take a wife, and she bear him no children, and he intend to take another
wife: if he take this second wife, and bring her into the house, this second wife shall not
be allowed equality with his wife.
146. If a man take a wife and she give this man a maid-servant as wife and she bear him
children, and then this maid assume equality with the wife: because she has borne him
children her master shall not sell her for money, but he may keep her as a slave,
reckoning her among the maid-servants.
147. If she have not borne him children, then her mistress may sell her for money.
148. If a man take a wife, and she be seized by disease, if he then desire to take a second
wife he shall not put away his wife, who has been attacked by disease, but he shall keep
her in the house which he has built and support her so long as she lives.
149. If this woman does not wish to remain in her husband's house, then he shall
compensate her for the dowry that she brought with her from her father's house, and she
may go.
150. If a man give his wife a field, garden, and house and a deed therefore, if then after
the death of her husband the sons raise no claim, then the mother may bequeath all to one
of her sons whom she prefers, and need leave nothing to his brothers.
195. If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.
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196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.
197. If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.
198. If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed man, he shall pay
one gold mina.
199. If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's slave, he shall
pay one-half of its value.
200. If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.
201. If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a gold mina.
202. If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty
blows with an ox-whip in public.
203. If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man or equal rank, he shall
pay one gold mina.
204. If a freed man strike the body of another freed man, he shall pay ten shekels in
money.
205. If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off.
206. If during a quarrel one man strike another and would him, then he shall swear, “I did
not injure him wittingly,” and pay the physicians
207. If the man die of his would, he shall swear similarly, and if he (the deceased) was a
free-born man, he shall pay half a mina in money.
208. If he was a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
209. If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten
shekels for her loss.
210. If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.
This is just a sample of the laws listed in the Code of Hammurabi. For a complete list,
check out www.philipmartin.info/hammurabi/hammurabi_codeindex.htm or
www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM
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The Bible
Exodus 20:3-17 (New International Version)
3 "You shall have no other gods before me.
4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on
the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship
them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of
the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6but showing love to a
thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold
anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all
your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not
do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant,
nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the
heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.
Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12 "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD
your God is giving you.
13 "You shall not murder.
14 "You shall not commit adultery.
15 "You shall not steal.
16 "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
17 "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife,
or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your
neighbor."
Exodus 21:12
"Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death.”
Exodus 21:16
16 "Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught
must be put to death.”
Exodus 21:18-19
18 "If men quarrel and one hits the other with a stone or with his fist and he does not die
but is confined to bed, 19 the one who struck the blow will not be held responsible if the
other gets up and walks around outside with his staff; however, he must pay the injured
man for the loss of his time and see that he is completely healed.”
Exodus 21:22-25
22 "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but
there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband
demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for
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life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound
for wound, bruise for bruise.”
Exodus 21:28-32
28 "If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull must be stoned to death, and its
meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible. 29 If,
however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not
kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull must be stoned and the owner also
must be put to death. 30However, if payment is demanded of him, he may redeem his life
by paying whatever is demanded. 31 This law also applies if the bull gores a son or
daughter. 32 If the bull gores a male or female slave, the owner must pay thirty shekels of
silver to the master of the slave, and the bull must be stoned.
Exodus 22
 2 "If a thief is caught breaking in and is struck so that he dies, the defender is not
guilty of bloodshed; 3 but if it happens after sunrise, he is guilty of bloodshed. "A
thief must certainly make restitution, but if he has nothing, he must be sold to pay
for his theft.
 7 "If a man gives his neighbor silver or goods for safekeeping and they are stolen
from the neighbor's house, the thief, if he is caught, must pay back double. 8 But
if the thief is not found, the owner of the house must appear before the judges to
determine whether he has laid his hands on the other man's property. 9 In all cases
of illegal possession of an ox, a donkey, a sheep, a garment, or any other lost
property about which somebody says, 'This is mine,' both parties are to bring their
cases before the judges. The one whom the judges declare guilty must pay back
double to his neighbor.
 19 "Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal must be put to death.
Exodus 23
 1 "Do not spread false reports. Do not help a wicked man by being a malicious
witness.
 2 "Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a
lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, 3 and do not show
favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit.
 4 "If you come across your enemy's ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to take it
back to him. 5If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under
its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help him with it.
 6 "Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. 7 Have nothing to do
with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I
will not acquit the guilty.
 8 "Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of
the righteous.
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Deuteronomy 16:18
8 Appoint judges and officials for each of your tribes in every town the LORD your God
is giving you, and they shall judge the people fairly.
Deuteronomy 21
Atonement for an Unsolved Murder
1 If a man is found slain, lying in a field in the land the LORD your God is giving you to
possess, and it is not known who killed him, 2 your elders and judges shall go out and
measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns. 3 Then the elders of the
town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked and has never worn
a yoke 4 and lead her down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and where
there is a flowing stream. There in the valley they are to break the heifer's neck. 5 The
priests, the sons of Levi, shall step forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to
minister and to pronounce blessings in the name of the LORD and to decide all cases of
dispute and assault. 6 Then all the elders of the town nearest the body shall wash their
hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley, 7 and they shall declare: "Our
hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. 8 Accept this atonement for
your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, O LORD, and do not hold your people
guilty of the blood of an innocent man." And the bloodshed will be atoned for. 9 So you
will purge from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done
what is right in the eyes of the LORD.
A Rebellious Son
18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother
and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take
hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the
elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a
profligate and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You
must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.
Various Laws
22 If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, 23 you
must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because
anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse. You must not desecrate the land the
LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.
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The Qur’an
(2:48) "Then guard yourself against a day when one person shall not avail of another, nor
shall the intercession be accepted for any person, nor any compensation be taken from
somebody, nor shall anyone be helped (against the law)."
[2:178] O YOU who have attained to faith! Just retribution is ordained for you in cases
of killing: the free for the free, and the slave for the slave, and the woman for the woman.
And if something [of his guilt] is remitted to a guilty person by his brother, this
[remission] shall be adhered to with fairness, and restitution to his fellow-man shall be
made in a goodly manner. This is an alleviation from your Sustainer, and an act of His
grace. And for him who, none the less, willfully transgresses the bounds of what is right,
there is grievous suffering in store:
[2:179] Equivalence is a life saving law for you, O you who possess intelligence, that you
may be righteous.
Bribery, Corruption Condemned
[2:188] and devour not one another's possessions wrongfully, and neither employ legal
artifices with a view to devouring sinfully, and knowingly, anything that by right belongs
to others.
Fair Judging
[4:58] BEHOLD, God bids you to deliver all that you have been entrusted with unto
those who are entitled thereto, and whenever you judge between people, to judge with
justice. Verily, most excellent is what God exhorts you to do: verily, God is all-hearing,
all-seeing!
[5:42] Hence, if they come to thee [for judgment], thou mayest either judge between them
or leave them alone: for, if thou leave them alone, they cannot harm thee in any way. But
if thou dost judge, judge between them with equity: verily, God knows those who act
equitably.
Murder
[4:92] It is not rightful for a Muslim to kill another Muslim, unless it occurs by mistake;
and the one who mistakenly kills a Muslim must set free a Muslim slave and pay bloodmoney to the family of the slain, except if they forego it; and if the victim is of a people
who are hostile to you, and the killer is a Muslim, then only the setting free of a Muslim
slave (is obligatory); and if the victim is from a people between whom and you there is a
treaty, then blood-money must be paid to his family and the setting free of a Muslim
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slave; therefore one who has no means must fast for two consecutive months; this is his
penance before Allah; and Allah is All Knowing, Wise.
[4:93]And whoever slays a Muslim on purpose, his reward will be hell - to remain in it
for ages - and Allah has wreaked wrath upon him and has cursed him and kept prepared a
terrible punishment for him.
17:31 And do not kill your children for fear of poverty; We give them sustenance and
yourselves (too); surely to kill them is a great wrong.
17:33 And do not kill any one whom Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause, and
whoever is slain unjustly, We have indeed given to his heir authority, so let him not
exceed the just limits in slaying; surely he is aided.
Self-Defense
42:39 And those who, when great wrong afflicts them, defend themselves.
42:41 Yet indeed, as for any who defend themselves after having been wronged no blame whatever attaches to them:
 42:42 blame attaches but to those who oppress [other] people and behave
outrageously on earth, offending against all right: for them there is grievous
suffering in store!
Punishment for a crime
(6:165) "Every person draws the meed of his acts on none but himself; no bearer of
burdens shall bear the burden of another."
 [5:38] NOW AS FOR the man who steals and the woman who steals, cut off the
hand of either of them in requital for what they have wrought, as a deterrent
ordained by God: for God is almighty, wise.
 42:40 And the recompense of evil is punishment like it, but whoever forgives
and amends, he shall have his reward from Allah; surely He does not love the
unjust.


*Alternate translations of Qur’an verses may be found at www.multimediaquran.com/quran
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READING QUIZ #1
1. The Bible, Code of Hammurabi, and Qur’an all state that their laws were
handed down to them from what source? List each individually. Answer:
Bible=God; Qur’an= God (Allah) through the angel Gabriel; Code of
Hammurabi= Babylonian god Bel through the power of rulers
2. List a minimum of three similarities between laws found in the Bible, Code of
Hammurabi, or the Qur’an. Answer: Several answers may be accepted
including: laws of eye for an eye in all three codes, laws of marriage and
inheritance between the Bible and Code of Hammurabi; laws for respecting
authority; laws for restitution, laws for fair judgment in Qur’an and Bible, etc.
3. Define Crime. Answer: Crime is defiance of a positive law, and crime is a breach
of moral law. Students may use mala prohibita and mala in se as examples.
4. What makes Literature different from Fiction? Answer should include several
of the following: Literature writes about serious issues, dilemmas, etc that plague
society; literature is character based and contains deep innovative thinking that
provokes intellectual thoughts; literature provokes the reader to change their
beliefs; Literature requires the author to impart deep feelings, emotions, and
lasting memories to the reader.
5. List a minimum of (5) laws in American law today, that can also be found in
either the Code of Hammurabi, the Bible, or the Qur’an. A variety of answers
will be accepted: Laws on murder; stealing; giving false testimony; violent
animals; etc.
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LESSON PLAN
COURSE TITLE: Criminal Justice in Literature
WEEK: 3
UNIT II: The Criminal Justice System
LESSON: 1
SPECIFIC TOPIC: Policing and the Process of Investigation and Arrest
Literature: The Trial by Franz Kafka
INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL: Students will learn about the American criminal justice
system beginning with the first step in the process of modern justice, police investigation
and arrest.
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE: After completion of this unit, students will be able to
describe the general functions of the police within the American criminal justice system.
Students will be able to identify the rights of the accused, including Miranda Rights, and
how these rights have affected modern policing and interrogation. Students will contrast
the police process in The Trial with the American policing process. Lastly, students will
define pertinent literary terms such as expressionism, nihilism, and point of view.
RATIONALE: It is important that students be aware of the components that comprise
that comprise the criminal justice system. Students will be able to examine the work of
Franz Kafka’s The Trial to examine how greatly the justice system varied in the book
from that of real life.
LESSON CONTENT:
I: American Criminal Justice: Police
 The modern justice process begins with investigation.
 Crime is discovered or reported.
 Evidence is gathered from the scene and follow up investigation attempts to
reconstruct the likely sequence of the crime.
 Arrest is made (either at the scene of the crime, or after the investigation with
the issuance of an arrest warrant.
 Upon arrest, defendants are usually advised of their Miranda Rights.
However, they only need to be told these rights prior to questioning.
Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
 “Right to remain silent”
 “Anything you say can and will be used against you in court”
 “You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any
questions, and to have him with you during questioning.”
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
“If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any
questioning if you wish.”
 “If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you will still
have the right to stop answering at any time. You also have the right to stop
answering at any time and may talk with a lawyer before deciding to speak
again.”
 “Do you wish to talk or not?”
 Do you want a lawyer?”
Constitutional Amendments pertinent to American system of justice (police):
 Right against unreasonable searches and seizures-4th amendment
 Right against arrest without probable cause- 4th amendment
 Right to know the charges-6th amendment
 The right to a lawyer- 6th amendment
 Right to Due Process- 5th, 6th, 14th amendments.
Due Process:
 Court cases relevant to due process laws in three major areas: (1) evidence and
investigation (search and seizure), (2) arrest, and (3) interrogation.
 Search and seizure- 4th amendment protection. Exclusionary Rule- Weeks v.
U.S.(1914); Mapp v. Ohio(1961); Chimel v. California (1969); Fruit of the
Poisoned Tree Doctrine- Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. U.S. (1920); Good Faith
Exception- U.S. v. Leon (1984); Massachusetts v. Sheppard (1984); Illinois v.
Krull (1987) (as cited in Schmalleger, 2004).
 Arrest: most of these cases deal with vehicle searches, person searches,
reasonable suspicion for stop and frisk actions, and suspicionless searches.
 Interrogation- defined by the supreme court as any behavior that “the police
should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the
suspect.” Physical abuse- Brown v. Mississippi (1936); Inherent CoercionAshcraft v. Tennessee (1944); Chambers v. Florida (1940); Psychological
Manipulation- Leyra v. Denno (1954), Arizona v. Fulminante (1991); Right to a
Lawyer at Interrogation- Escobedo v. Illinois (1964); Edwards v. Arizona (1981);
Davis v. U.S. (1994) (as cited in Schmalleger, 2004).
II: The Trial by Franz Kafka
 Story is told in 3rd person perspective. This is classic of 20th century
expressionism where the author only shows the perception of the character, and
not necessarily the reality of what is happening.
 Expressionism- the attempt to portray the inner workings of a person’s mind by,
effectively, turning them ‘inside out’ and allowing their mental states to shape
their face, body, and the world in which they live (Cummings, 2010). Joseph K. is
trapped inside a distorted vision of the world that reflects either the characters
own psychological conflicts, or those of the society in which the original readers
lived.
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



Nihilism- philosophical position which argues that the world, especially past and
current human existence, is without objective meaning, purpose, comprehensible
truth, or essential value (Cummings, 2010).
Point of View- the perspective from which the story is told. It can take the form
of
 First person (I).
 Omniscient narrator-knows everything, reveals motivations, thoughts and
feelings of the characters, and provides the reader with information.
 Limited omniscient narrator (3rd person)- point of view of a character.
 Objective point of view- reveals action and the characters’ speech, without
comment or emotion. The reader has to interpret them and uncover their
meaning (Cummings, 2010).
Themes in first half
 Isolation/abandonment
 Original Sin- Joseph K. is guilty simply for existing
 Force that determines destiny (unjustly or justly) it takes the form
of the government and police in the story. Similarities to this can
be found in Oedipus Rex, King Lear, and the book of Job in the
Bible.
Comparison of Police Investigation, Arrest, and Seizure Class Discussion.
 What rights of the accused that are given to American citizens, were
denied Joseph K in the story?
 Do you believe it should have been the police officers job to inform
Joseph K of the crimes he was accused of?
 Because this is a piece of expressionism literature, is it possible that
Joseph K was informed of his crime and was indeed guilty of committing
a crime? Was the “injustice” he experienced all in his mind?
 Are there any noticeable similarities between police procedure in The
Trial and in America’s justice system today?
 How would the application of Miranda Rights have changed K’s story?
EVALUATION PROCEDURES:
Students will be given a five-question quiz at the end of the entire Unit. Material covered
in this Unit will also be evaluated in a midterm exam during the 8th week of instruction.
MATERIALS AND AIDES:
The instructor may wish to include a power point presentation to offer students
information relevant to this unit of study.
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LESSON PLAN
COURSE TITLE: Criminal Justice in Literature
WEEK: 4
UNIT II: The Criminal Justice System
LESSON: 2
SPECIFIC TOPIC: Courts and Incarceration
Literature: The Trial by Franz Kafka; “God Sees the Truth, But Waits”
INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL: Students will learn about the American criminal justice
system and more specifically the role of courts and incarceration in the justice process.
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE: After completion of this unit, students will be able to
describe the general functions of the courts and corrections in the American criminal
justice system. Students will identify the rights of the accused during a court trial and
compare this to the trial found in The Trial by Kafka. Students will be able to explain due
process, and the accused “Bill of Rights” regarding trial. Additionally, students will
define pertinent literary terms such as foreshadowing and Kafkaesque. Students will also
examine the effects of life in prison sentences versus death penalty sentences by
comparing “God Sees the Truth, but Waits” by Leo Tolstoy, with Franz Kafka’s The
Trial.
RATIONALE: It is important that students be aware of the components that comprise
the criminal justice system. Students will be able to examine the work of Franz Kafka’s
The Trial to examine how greatly the justice system varied in the book from that of real
life. “God Sees the Truth, But Waits” will also be helpful to allow students to examine
the effects of incarceration on a person’s spirit, and the struggles faced by those who are
given life in prison sentences.
LESSON CONTENT:
I. Role of the Courts:
 Two main systems that function within the American criminal justice
system: Federal court system and the State court system.
 State trial courts are where criminal cases begin. They conduct
arraignments, set bails, take pleas, and conduct trials.
 Courtroom participants include judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys,
victims, and defendants.
II. Stages in a criminal trial:
 First Appearance- Within hours of arrest, suspects are supposed to be
brought before a magistrate (judicial officer) for their first appearance. It is at
this stage that the Judge will tell them of the charges against them, advise
them again of their rights, and may offer them the opportunity for bail. Most
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defendants are released on recognizance (into their own care or the care of
another), or given the opportunity to post a bond during their first appearance.
It is also at this stage that a lawyer will be appointed to the defendant if they
do not have one and cannot afford one (Schmalleger, 2004).
 Preliminary Hearing- The purpose of this hearing is to establish whether
sufficient evidence exists against a person to continue the justice process. At
this hearing the judge will determine whether there is probable cause to
believe that (1) a crime has indeed been committed, and (2) the defendant
committed it. This hearing also allows the defense to assess the strength of the
prosecution’s case (Schmalleger, 2004).
 Arraignment- this is the first appearance of the defendant before the court
that has the authority to conduct a trial. The accused stands before the judge
and hears the charges brought against them, are again informed of their rights,
and are asked to enter a plea. Pleas can include not guilty, guilty, and no
contest (Schmalleger, 2004).
 Trial- Every citizen of the U.S. has the right under the 6th Amendment to a
trial by jury. During the trial, examination is made of the issues of fact and
relevant law in a case for the purpose of either convicting or acquitting the
defendant. It should also be noted that the American court system is
adversarial, thus pitting the defense attorney’s against the prosecutors
(Schmalleger, 2004).
 Sentencing- Once a person is convicted it becomes the responsibility of the
judge to impose a form of punishment. Prior to sentencing, a sentencing
hearing may be held in which information is presented by the defense,
prosecution, and even from a probation or parole officer on the defendant. At
this point, a defendant can be sentenced with supervised probation in the
community, a fine, prison, or a combination of these (Schmalleger, 2004).
III. Corrections
 Main Goals of Contemporary Sentencing- Retribution, Incapacitation,
Deterrence, Rehabilitation, and Restoration.
 Indeterminate Sentencing- This is a model of punishment which
encourages rehabilitation through the use of general and relatively
unspecific sentences such as a prison sentence of one to ten years with the
possibility of probation after three years.
 Structured Sentencing-This model of criminal punishment gives an
offender a fixed term that may be reduced through good behavior. This
type of sentencing gives the same sentencing for all individuals who are
convicted of the same degree of offense.
 Mandatory Sentencing- There is no leeway in this sentencing and certain
offenses require clearly enumerated punishments. Examples are
mandatory sentencing for 3 strikes in California, or 3 years for armed
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robbery. Each state has its own mandatory sentencing laws for specific
crimes.
 Capital Punishment- This is the most extreme of all the punishment
options. It is usually reserved for the most repugnant of crimes like
extreme acts of violence in a murder. There are currently 15 states that
have abolished the death penalty, including the District of Columbia.
Texas has, by far, the highest rate of executions at 464, compared to
California’s 13 (Death Penalty Information Center, 2010).
 Life Sentence- 45 states currently employ a life sentence with no
possibility of parole for at least 25 years, and 33 of those states use a life
sentence without the possibility of parole (Dieter, 1993). Interestingly, in
the majority of states when a person is given the death penalty, they
instead spend life in prison due to an expansive and lengthy appeals
process, and the power of the governor, Supreme Court Judge, and the
President to grant stays of execution.
IV. Additional Themes Addressed in The Trial
 Big government is unwieldy, unfair, unforgiving. This story is a statement
by Kafka against Totalitarianism and a critique of societies that rely too
much on the red-tape of bureaucracy to get things done.
 Dystopic, or negative, view of modern society. The poor live in
impoverished and inhumane conditions. Individuals are forced to conform
instead of pursuing their own desires.
V. Literary Terms:
 Kafkaesque- defined as something that is impersonal and too complex:
overly complex in seemingly pointless, impersonal, and often disturbing
way. Also defined as being marked by a senseless, disorienting, often
menacing complexity (Cummings, 2010).
 Foreshadowing- the presentation in a work of literature of hints and clues
that tip the reader off as to what is to come later in the work (Cummings,
2010). For example, the wife’s dream in “God Sees The Truth, But Waits”
is foreshadowing of what is going to happen to the protagonist.
VI. Class Discussion Questions
 Why did Kafka name the protagonist Joseph K. but give other characters a last
name?
 Does the justice system in The Trial resemble in any way the justice system in
present day America or any other country?
 Many have stated that The Trial is meant to be a humorous satire of the justice
system and the courts. Do you agree?
 Why is Joseph K. on trial? What is his crime?
 Kafka felt that the parable of the Law in Chapter 9 was so important that it
was published on its own, as a short story. What does this parable on the Law
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mean to you? How would The Trial be different if it did not contain the
parable of the Law?
VII. Incarceration in “God Sees the Truth, But Waits” Leo Tolstoy
 This story reflects Tolstoy’s own turn toward religion, and his hatred of the
corruption of the state.
 Displays how prisoner’s who have been given a life sentence turn towards
religion and finding a meaningful role within the prison.
 Protagonist became the person that the other prisoner’s went to for advice,
similar to some prisoners in modern society who have taken their life
sentences and help other prisoner’s in writing court appeals, education,
religion, etc.
Questions on Story
 Anton Chekhov wrote in “The Bet” (1889) - “if one may judge a priori, the
death penalty is more moral and more humane than imprisonment for life.
Capital punishment kills a man at once, but lifelong imprisonment kills him
slowly” (1). Based on this statement, what do you believe?
 Which character do you think had the better sentence, Joseph K., or
Aksionov?
 What is the significance of the title “God Sees the Truth, But Waits?”
EVALUATION PROCEDURES:
At the end of this unit, students will be given a five-question quiz in which they
will:
1. Describe the components that make up the American Criminal Justice
System, as well as list the main functions of each component agency.
2. Identify the rights of the accused (Miranda Rights, Constitutional
Rights)
3. Contrast the justice found in the literature with justice found in the
criminal justice system today.
4. Define literary terms such as expressionism, nihilism, point of view,
foreshadowing, and Kafkaesque.
5. Argue for or against the death penalty or life imprisonment, utilizing
textual references as support.
Material covered in this Unit will also be evaluated in a midterm exam during the
8th week of instruction.
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Reading Quiz #2
1.
What are the three components that comprise the American Criminal Justice
System? List some of the main functions for each component. Answer should
contain Police, Courts and Corrections and should list some of their common
functions (investigation, search, prosecution, incarceration, etc.)
2.
What are some protections that are guaranteed to the accused and
defendants? Answers should include something about the Miranda Rights, what
those rights entail, or the Bill of Rights in the constitution.
3.
Define a minimum of (3) of the (5) literary terms: expressionism, nihilism,
point of view, foreshadowing, Kafkaesque, and give an example from the text
in The Trial or “God Sees the Truth, But Waits” for each one.
(1)Expressionism= the attempt to portray the inner workings of a person’s mind
by, effectively, turning them ‘inside out’ and allowing their mental states to shape
their face, body, and the world in which they live. Joseph K. is trapped inside a
distorted vision of the world that reflects either the characters own psychological
conflicts, or those of the society in which the original readers lived.
(2) Nihilism= philosophical position which argues that the world, especially past
and current human existence, is without objective meaning, purpose,
comprehensible truth, or essential value. Example-Joseph K. is not upset about
being executed...only about being killed like a dog.
(3) Point of View= the perspective from which the story is told. Example- The
Trial is told from 3rd person perspective.
(4)Foreshadowing= the presentation in a work of literature of hints and clues that
tip the reader off as to what is to come later in the work. For example, the wife’s
dream in “God Sees The Truth, But Waits” is foreshadowing of what is going to
happen to the protagonist.
(5) Kafkaesque= defined as something that is impersonal and too complex: overly
complex in seemingly pointless, impersonal, and often disturbing way. Also
defined as being marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity.
Obvious example is the entire story of The Trial.
4.
How would the application of Miranda Rights changed Joseph K’s story?
Answers may include examples of being informed of rights, being informed of the
crime in which he was accused, given a lawyer, etc.
5.
Using examples from The Trial and “God Sees the Truth, But Waits,” argue
whether or not you believe the death penalty is more humane than life in
prison. Do you believe that Aksionov would have traded places with Joseph
K.? Answers to this question will vary.
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LESSON PLAN
COURSE TITLE: Criminal Justice in Literature
WEEK: 5
UNIT III: Criminological Theories/ Violent Crime in
Literature
SPECIFIC TOPIC: Homicide
Literature: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
LESSON: 1
INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL: This unit will address general categories of crime, and
more specifically violent crime that can be found within works of literature. Additionally,
criminological theories will be presented within this unit in order for students to examine
theories on the causation of crime and actively apply these theories to the criminal acts of
the characters that they read.
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE: After completion of this unit, students will
distinguish between the different types of crime (felony, misdemeanor), as well as the
degree to which those crimes can be classified and prosecuted. Recall the various
criminological theories they learn in the course and will apply these theories to interpret
characters actions within the literature. Define literary terms relevant to this unit such as
non-fiction novel, naturalism, impressionism, and Social Darwinism. Finally, they will
evaluate the effectiveness of Capote’s style of writing in telling the true story of the
Clutter’s murder.
RATIONALE: An examination of criminal justice would not be complete without the
examination of the various types of crime that can be committed, as well as an
examination of the various criminological theories that can be utilized to explain the
causation of crime.
LESSON CONTENT:
I. Criminological Theories Overview (Classical, Biological, Psychological)
(Schmalleger, 2002; Miller, Schreck,& Tewksbury, 2006):
 Classical and Neoclassical Thought- Most classical theories of crime
causation make the following basic instructions:
 Human beings are fundamentally rational, and most human
behavior is the result of the combination of free will and rational
choice.
 People exhibit hedonism by seeking pleasure to avoid pain.
 Punishment is a necessary evil to deter those who would violate
the law, as well as to serve as an example to others who would also
violate the law.
 Principles of right and wrong are inherent and cannot be denied.
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

Society exists to provide benefits to individual’s that they would
not receive in isolation.
 Law is created when individuals band together to create a society,
but in so doing they forfeit some of the benefits (lawlessness) that
occur in living in isolation.
 Every human is born with certain inalienable rights.
 Crime disparages the quality of the bond that exists between
individuals in a society and is therefore an immoral form of
behavior (Schmalleger, 2002).
Hedonistic Calculus or Utilitarianism- Individuals weigh (intuitively)
the consequences of their behavior before acting so they can maximize
their own pleasure and minimize pain (Miller, Schreck, & Tewksbury,
2006).
Rational Choice Theory- late 1970s, early 1980s theory that criminals
make rational, conscious, and informed decisions to commit crime.
Benefits outweigh the costs (Earls & Reiss, 1994) .
Biological Theories of Crime- Certain fundamental assumptions are made
(Schmalleger, 2002):
 The brain is the organ of the mind and the locus of personality.
 Basic determinants of human behavior, including criminal tendencies, are
found in the brain and therefore can be constitutionally or genetically
based.
 Gender and racial differences observed in Rates and types of criminality
may be at least partially due to biological differences between the sexes
and between racially distinct groups.
 Basic determinants for criminality in human behavior may be passed on
genetically.
 Some types of behavior such as territoriality, condemnation of adultery,
and acquisitiveness are instinctual to human beings.
 How far along someone is on the evolutionary chain can affect their
behavior.
 The interplay between heredity, biology, and social environment provide
the nexus for the consideration of crime causation (Schmalleger, 2002).
Physiognomy and Phrenology- focuses on the study of facial features and
size shape and contours of people’s heads as determinants of people who are
(are would be) criminals (Miller, Schreck, & Tewksbury, 2006).
Atavism- Cesare Lombroso argued that criminals were essentially a
throwback to a lower form of human and therefore more likely to display a
number of physical characteristics similar to apes (overly large head, large
eyes, large or protruding lips, large ears, etc.) (1911/1972).
Genetic Predisposition- criminal behavior is inherited and runs in the
family. Also, the XYY supermale- genetically born with an extra Y
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chromosome and are physically larger and taller, have strong masculine
traits, and are more aggressive and prone to violence (Miller, Schreck, &
Tewksbury, 2006).
Hormones- levels of sex hormones (estrogen and testosterone) effect
behavior and levels of aggression. Men with higher testosterone levels are
more likely to commit crime (Jacobs, Brunton & Melville, 1965; Kessler
& Moos, 1970; Fox, 1971 as cited in Miller, Schreck, & Tewksbury,
2006). There is also the theory that women can commit crime due to PMS
(Cooke, 1945; Bond, Critchlow, & Wingrove, 2003, as cited in Miller,
Schreck, & Tewksbury, 2006).

Psychological Theories of Crime- most psychological theories make the following
fundamental assumptions (Schmalleger, 2002):
 The individual is the primary unit of analysis.
 Personality is the major motivational element within an individual because it
drives and motivates.
 Criminal behavior, even when condemned by the social group, may be
purposeful to the individual because it addresses certain felt needs. Behavior
can only be deemed “inappropriate” when measured against external criteria
that is considered “normal.”
 What is normal and accepted behavior is defined by social consensus.
 Defective, or abnormal, mental processes can have a variety of causes
including mental disease, improper conditioning or inappropriate learning,
emulation of inappropriate role models, and adjustment to inner conflicts.
 Because it is possible to find and isolate the mental problems that cause an
individual to commit a crime, rehabilitation is possible.
Psychoanalytic Theory- Based on Freudian psychology and the belief that a
person commits crime because the three parts of their personality (id, ego, and
superego) conflict with each other as a result of early life trauma or deprivation.
Or, one part of the personality dominates the other two so strongly that deviant
behavior occurs (Miller, Schreck, & Tewksbury, 2006). Crime is caused as a
result of one of three basic situations:
 Some people are not appropriately socialized and the id controls their
personality. Social rules and norms are ignored, unnoticed, or disregarded
in the effort to pursue wants and needs.
 Some people are overly socialized and the superego dominates their
personality. The id is held tightly in check and all but silenced and
repressed. If the person’s id has led them into situations early in their life
for which they now feel guilty, their superego will lead them into
situations and behaviors that will draw attention to the individual to get
them caught and punished for their actions.
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
Some people who have effectively or over-effectively repressed their guilt
over early misdeeds may eventually experience a breaking through of their
repressed guilt and id, which leads to an explosion of acting out behavior.
The id is suppressed to a point where it finally explodes like a volcano and
causes the criminal behavior (Miller, Schreck, & Tewksbury, 2006).
Personality Theories- Some people have criminal personalities, Yochelson and
Samenow (1976) listed 52 errors of criminal thinking found in all offenders that
included things like: manipulativeness, being very energetic, feeling superior to
others, having a very high self-image, having a short temper, chronic lying, etc (as
cited in Schmalleger, 2002).
Mental Illness- Crime caused because of mental illness such as Schizophrenia,
Antisocial Personality Disorder (sociopath, psychopath).
II: General Categories of Crime:
 Felonies-Serious crimes including murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery,
burglary, and arson. Punishable by death, incarceration, severe fines,
probation, or a mixture of all of the above.
 Misdemeanors- relatively minor crimes like petty theft, simple assault,
breaking and entering, disorderly conduct, etc. In general, they are crimes that
punishable by one year in prison or less.
 Offenses- jaywalking, littering, committing traffic violations, they are
commonly referred to as infractions.
III: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
 Created the nonfiction novel, or “true fiction”- which is a genre that combines
historical realities with fictional devices in order to explore, interrogate, and
imaginatively recreate actual events. Edgar Allan Poe often used real life murders
to inspire his short stories.
 Capote read about the real life murder of the Clutter family and interviewed the
convicted killers in prison to write this story.
 Point of View- Omniscient narrator. Capote is sympathetic in his tone throughout
the story without being sentimental
 Themes- human nature and evil, nature vs. nurture, fate vs. free will, justice and
punishment .
 In Cold Blood is both a documentary and literary. In the opening scene Capote
describes the Kansas farmland as “flat, and the views are awesomely extensive:
horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as
Greek temples are visible long before the traveler reaches them.” In this passage,
Capote evokes the Pastoral, but he also evokes the Greek tragedy (this suggests
themes of state, justice, and the connection between the crimes of individual’s and
the health of the state).
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IV: Discussion Questions:
 What is the tone of the book?
 In what ways is In Cold Blood like a fiction novel?
 How are the facts of the case conveyed without using a journalistic style?
 How did Capote humanize the killers? Did you find yourself empathizing with
them?
 Why do you think Capote split the narrative into three sections?
 Do you think that Dick and Perry were sane?
 How does Capote build suspense in the story, despite the fact that the readers
ultimately know how the story is going to end.
EVALUATION PROCEDURES:
Assessment of this unit will be combined with an overall assessment of the first half of
this course to assess the student’s general knowledge and understanding of the
information discussed and read in the course. The exam will be formatted using multiple
choice questions, and short answer/essay questions.
MATERIALS AND AIDES:
(none)
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LESSON PLAN
COURSE TITLE: Criminal Justice in Literature
WEEK: 6
UNIT III: Criminological Theories/ Violent Crime in
Literature
SPECIFIC TOPIC: Homicide
Literature: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
LESSON: 2
INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL: This unit will address general categories of crime, and
more specifically violent crime that can be found within works of literature. Additionally,
criminological theories will be presented within this unit in order for students to examine
theories on the causation of crime and actively apply these theories to the criminal acts of
the characters that they read.
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE: After completion of this unit, students will
distinguish between the different types of crime (felony, misdemeanor), as well as the
degree to which those crimes can be classified and prosecuted. Recall the various
criminological theories they learn in the course and will apply these theories to interpret
characters actions within the literature. Define literary terms relevant to this unit such as
non-fiction novel, naturalism, impressionism, and Social Darwinism. Finally, they will
Question whether the characters of Dick and Perry were psychologically sound to stand
on trial for the murders of the Clutter family.
RATIONALE: An examination of criminal justice would not be complete without the
examination of the various types of crime that can be committed, as well as an
examination of the various criminological theories that can be utilized to explain the
causation of crime.
LESSON CONTENT:
I: Criminological Theories: Social Structure, Social Process.
Social Structure Theories-explain crime by reference to the institutional structure of
society. There are three main types of social structure theories
 Social Disorganization Theory- Root causes of crime are social change,
social conflict, and lack of social consensus. Explains why some communities
have higher crime rates than others. When social organizations in the
community are functioning properly, the community can deal with problems
of crime. Shaw and McKay in the 1930s and 1940s found that crime mostly
occurred in the transitional zone (the least desirable residential properties,
poor individuals, racially/ethnically heterogeneous, and had a high rate of
residential instability) (Shaw & McKay, 1942; Smith & Jarjoura, 1988).
 Strain Theory- Theory offered by Merton (1938) where the main concept is
that people who fail to get what they want are more likely to turn to crime,
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and that they would obey the law if they could but are forced into crime due to
various dysfunctions in their society or circumstances. Anomie- disjunction
between socially approved means of gaining success and legitimate goals.
American Dream- pressure to gain the American dream exerts pressure
towards crime in order to achieve these goals (as cited in Schmalleger, 2002).
 Culture Conflict- Sees the root cause of crime as a clash of vales between
various socialized groups over what is acceptable behavior. Conduct norms
are developed early in life through socialization, and provide the basis for
human behavior. Subcultural theory- defined by Selling (1938) as a collection
of values and preferences that are communicated through socialization (as
cited in Schmalleger, 2002).
Social Process Theories:
 Social Learning – all behavior is learned, crime is also learned. Differential
association states that a person learns criminality when others communicate
criminal values and advocate committing crimes (Whitehead & Lab, 2004).
 Social Control Theory- Focuses on the strength of the bond that people share
with the institutions and individuals around them. Inner and Outer
containment suggests that a person can be either contained by external forces
such as a group, community, society, state, or through inner containment of
personal aspirations, goals, etc. Social bonds also play a vital role (Whitehead
& Lab, 2004).
 Labeling Theory- This is the belief that once a person is tagged with a label
such as juvenile delinquent, they will continue to commit criminal acts
because of limited opportunities for acceptable behavior due to negative
responses of society (Becker, 1963).
II: Discussion Questions:

Capote recounts the story in a specific order. Why do you think Capote chose not to
describe the murder scene until the confession?

Capote seemed to paint Perry in a more sympathetic light than Dick. However, at the
end you find out that Perry committed all four murders. Did that surprise you? Did
you sympathize with Dick or Perry at any point of the story?

Did the psychiatric analysis of them surprise you?

Since Perry confessed to actually performing all four murders, do you believe Dick
should not have been given the death penalty?

How does the nonprimary homicide in the story differ from the usual primary
homicides?
EVALUATION PROCEDURES:
Assessment of this unit will be combined with an overall assessment of the first half of
this course to assess the student’s general knowledge and understanding of the
147
information discussed and read in the course. The exam will be formatted using multiple
choice questions, and short answer/essay questions.
148
LESSON PLAN
COURSE TITLE: Criminal Justice in Literature
WEEK: 7
UNIT III: Violent Crime in Literature (cont.)
LESSON: 3
SPECIFIC TOPIC: Assault and Battery, Domestic Abuse
Literature: “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets” by Stephen Crane
INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL: This unit will address general categories of crime, and
more specifically violent crime that can be found within works of literature. Additionally,
criminological theories will be presented within this unit in order for students to examine
theories on the causation of crime and actively apply these theories to the criminal acts of
the characters that they read.
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE: After completion of this lesson, students will
distinguish between the different types of crime (felony, misdemeanor), as well as the
degree to which those crimes can be classified and prosecuted. Recall the various
criminological theories they learn in the course and will apply these theories to interpret
characters actions within the literature. Define literary terms relevant to this unit such as
non-fiction novel, naturalism, impressionism, and Social Darwinism. Finally students
will contrast the crime and lifestyle of the characters in the poor tenement housing in the
story, with crime and lifestyle in today’s inner city ghetto’s.
RATIONALE: An examination of criminal justice would not be complete without the
examination of the various types of crime that can be committed, as well as an
examination of the various criminological theories that can be utilized to explain the
causation of crime.
LESSON CONTENT:
I: Pertinent Criminological Theories
 Cultural Transmission- Developed under Shaw and McKay’s Social
Disorganization theory. This theory held that the tradition of delinquency is
transmitted through successive generations of the same zone in the same way that
language, roles, and attitudes are communicated (Miller, Schreck, & Tewksbury,
2006).
 Criminology of Place/environmental criminology- “hot spots” of crime exist in
areas with neighborhoods that are dense and poor, people congregate outside the
home and raise the likelihood of deviance, less supervision of children, lower
levels of education, broken windows and physical deterioration of buildings
increase crime, etc. (Miller, Schreck, & Tewksbury, 2006; Schmalleger, 2002).
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II: Themes within “Maggie”:
 First work of American Naturalism and Impressionism
 Naturalism- style of writing in which the characters are trapped by their
environment and are powerless to change it. Themes often found in naturalism
literature are violence, crime, poverty, urban squalor, etc (Cummings, 2010).
 Social Darwinism- linked with Naturalism, belief that the strongest and the fittest
survive in society (Cummings, 2010).
 Impressionism- literary style that uses details and mental associations to evoke
subjective and sensory impressions rather than the re-creation of objective reality
(Cummings, 2010).
 Poor living conditions of tenements in19th century New York
 Prostitution
 Double standard for women
 Women’s life and work
 Domestic abuse
III: Discussion Questions:
 Is Maggie to blame for her descent into prostitution?
 What criminological theories can be applied to this story to explain the causation
of crime from the characters?
 The prostitute wandering the streets at the end of the story is not given a name but
the reader is left with the impression that it is Maggie. What is the significance of
taking away her name?
 Do you believe Jimmie was “fated” to turn out just like his father?
 In the story we are told that Jimmie, his mother, and Pete, all have long histories
with the police and courts. Does this mirror society?
 What role does religion play within this novella?
 Does the application of Strain Theory help to explain why characters acted in
certain ways?
 The first half of the novella is in chronological order, but becomes disjointed after
Maggie is told that she is “going to the devil,” What does this signify?
 What crimes are represented in this novella?
EVALUATION PROCEDURES:
Assessment of this unit will be combined with an overall assessment of the first half of
this course to assess the student’s general knowledge and understanding of the
information discussed and read in the course. The exam will be formatted using multiple
choice questions, and short answer/essay questions.
150
LESSON PLAN
COURSE TITLE: Criminal Justice in Literature
WEEK: 8
UNIT III: Violent Crime in Literature (cont.)
LESSON: 4
SPECIFIC TOPIC: Rape
Literature: “The Trial” by George Chambers
INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL: This unit will address general categories of crime, and
more specifically violent crime that can be found within works of literature. Additionally,
criminological theories will be presented within this unit in order for students to examine
theories on the causation of crime and actively apply these theories to the criminal acts of
the characters that they read.
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE: After completion of this lesson, students will
distinguish between the different types of crime (felony, misdemeanor), as well as the
degree to which those crimes can be classified and prosecuted. Recall the various
criminological theories they learn in the course and will apply these theories to interpret
characters actions within the literature. Identify common “rape myths” and critique
current rape shield statutes as to how well they protect victims from these “myths”
affecting them in court cases.
RATIONALE: An examination of criminal justice would not be complete without the
examination of the various types of crime that can be committed, as well as an
examination of the various criminological theories that can be utilized to explain the
causation of crime.
LESSON CONTENT:
I: Rape
 Common Law Definition- Until the 1970s rape was a common law offense and
was defined as “carnal knowledge of a woman not one’s wife by force or against
her will” (Schmalleger, 2002).
 Rape Myths- false assumptions about rape that characterize much of the
discourse about sexual violence (Schmalleger, 2002).
 Women bring up false rape charges to “get even” with men
 Women bring rape upon themselves by wearing provocative clothing
 Women are asking to be raped when they go to bars alone
 Women say ‘no’ when they really mean ‘yes’
 Rape Law Reform- 1975, Michigan was the first state to redefine rape to
encompass a broader range of assaultive behavior. By 1992, all states had made
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significant changes to the common law offense of rape (Spohn & Horney, 1992).
There were four common themes to all Rape Law Reform:
 Redefined rape and replaced the single crime of rape with a series of
graded offenses that are defined by the presence or absence of
aggravating circumstances.
 Changed the consent standard to eliminate the requirement of the
victim to have physically resisted the attacker.
 Eliminated the requirement that the victim’s statements be
corroborated.
 Placed restrictions of the introduction of evidence of a victim’s prior
sexual conduct (Schmalleger, 2002).
 Rape Shield Laws- Introduced in the 1970s, they are intended to protect the rape
victim by ensuring that defendants do not present irrelevant facts about the
victim’s sexual past into evidence during a court trial. They protect from a
“second assault” of the victim (Spohn & Horney, 1992).
 Federal Rule 412- Federal law stating that evidence to prove that the alleged
victim engaged in other sexual behavior, and evidence offered to prove the
victim’s sexual predisposition are inadmissible in court. Exceptions: to prove that
a person other than the accused was the source of semen, injury, or other physical
evidence, evidence that if excluded would violate the constitutional rights of the
defendant, and evidence of specific incidences of sexual behavior by the alleged
victim in respect to the accused to prove consent (Federal Rules of Evidence,
1978).
 Lack of Reporting- It was hoped that Rape Shield Laws would increase the
chance that victims would report rape. Unfortunately, according to the National
Center for Victims of Crime because rape shield laws only guard against the
introduction of a victim’s sexual history during the trial, not during pretrial
publicity, many victims are still deterred from reporting the offense (2010).
 “Fresh Complaint Rule”- Evidence of a prompt complaint of rape (made “fresh”
after the occurrence of the rape) is admissible to corroborate the complaining
witnesses’ testimony regarding the occurrence of the rape (Stanchi, 1996).
II: Discussion Questions:
 What is the significance of the victim’s last name being Smith?
 What is the significance of the defendants name being George Washington
Jr.?
 The style of writing in the story is disjointed. What was the author trying
to convey with this writing style?
 How does it make you feel when Bel starts to blame herself for the rape?
 This story was written in 1977 yet did not reflect rape shield laws that
were introduced starting in 1974. Was the author trying to raise
awareness?
 Was Bel a situational victim?
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


Why is it so important to protect victims in the criminal justice system?
Think about the woman who has charged Kobe Bryant of sexual assault
and the media scrutiny she is undergoing. Should rape shield laws be
extended to protect victims from media scrutiny?
What rape myths do you commonly hear from the media in high-profile
sexual assault cases?
EVALUATION PROCEDURES: Assessment of this unit will be combined with an
overall assessment of the first half of this course to assess the student’s general
knowledge and understanding of the information discussed and read in the course. The
exam will be formatted using multiple choice questions and short answer/essay questions
and will cover material from class discussion, lecture, and the readings.
MATERIALS AND AIDES:
“The Trial” by George Chambers in Null set and other stories. (Handout)
153
LESSON PLAN
COURSE TITLE: Criminal Justice in Literature
WEEK: 9
UNIT IV: Elements of an Offender
LESSON: 1
SPECIFIC TOPIC: Race
Literature: To Kill a Mockingbird
INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL: This unit will allow students to examine the variables of
class, race, gender, age, and mental status in relation to crime.
Students will be expected to apply the criminological theories they learned in the first
half of the course in the readings.
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE: After completion of this lesson, students will
 Identify factors of an offender that have an influence on them in the criminal
justice system.
 Compare and contrast the issues of race in the Scottsboro Boys case with the trial
in To Kill a Mockingbird and relate this to current issues of racial discrimination
in the justice system.
 Describe how race has historically played a factor in America’s criminal justice
system.
 Critique the current justice system’s ability to protect from racial discrimination
within the criminal justice system.
RATIONALE: Students need to be aware of the factors of an offender that have an
influence on them in the criminal justice system. These factors may include, race, gender,
mental status, and the age of the offender.
LESSON CONTENT:
I: Historical Context:
 To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960 but the story occurs from the years
1933-1935 during the Great Depression. Many people had lost their jobs, their
businesses, their homes, and even their land. Even those citizens who managed to
keep a full-time job during this time were barely making enough money to live
on. There was ferocious rivalry on the few jobs that would become available.
 In the South, the Great Depression caused greater tension between black and
white people (which had existed ever since the Civil War) as they competed
against each other for the few jobs that existed.
 The KKK was still very active at this time and were not prosecuted by the law for
their actions against African Americans. The prevalence of lynching at this time
was great in number and was not prosecuted by the law.
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
Jim Crow laws were still in affect at this time, which were a series of laws in
almost every state that promoted the segregation of whites and blacks, and
ultimately took away many African Americans Constitutional rights.
II: Scottsboro Boys Trial
 The court trial in To Kill a Mockingbird greatly resembles the Scottsboro Boys
Trial of 1931 and 1933.
 It was the trial of nine black men who were accused by two white women of
raping them in an open train car. Twelve days after the boys arrest, they were
tried and despite a lack of evidence, 8 of the boys were sentenced to death; a
mistrial was declared for the 9th boy due to his youth. The executions were
suspended pending court appeals and the case eventually reached the U.S.
Supreme Court where it was declared the boys did not have adequate legal
representation(Linder, 1999).
 In 1933 the court case was tried again, but this time the boys had appointed legal
representation, Samuel Leibowitz, a white defense lawyer from New York who
vehemently defended the young black men despite death threats, lack of pay or
reimbursement, and the overall belief that there was no way a court in Alabama
would find in favor of the defendants due to their skin color (Linder, 1999).
 It is also interesting to note that even though the men in the trial were appointed a
lawyer, the law that required states to provide an attorney to those who could not
afford legal counsel did not exist until 1963 (Grine, 2008).
 By 1937, charges against four of the men were dropped. By the 1940s all but one
had either escaped or been paroled. On June 9, 1950, the last Scottsboro defendant
was released from prison (Johnson, 1994).
 It is important to note that according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics
(1982), since 1930, 90% of those executed for the crime of rape were African
American.
III: To Kill a Mockingbird
 Published in 1960 but the setting is in Alabama from 1933-1935.
 Themes addressed in this book include racial profiling and discrimination, mob
justice, and the court process of the South during the Great Depression.
 There are many similarities that can be drawn between the real court case of the
Scottsboro Boys Trial and the trial that occurs within the book.
 Symbolism- Defined as attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects,
events, or relationships (Cummings, 2010). The Mockingbird in the title and the
story is a metaphor for Tom Robinson. The children are told in the story that they
should not kill a mockingbird because the mockingbird is a harmless creature who
only wants to please people with its songs and is defenseless against hunters.
 The Mockingbird becomes a metaphor for the wrongness of killing innocent and
vulnerable people like Tom Robinson.
 Point of view- the story is told from Scout’s viewpoint.
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
Crime- crimes in the beginning of the story are Scout’s “childish” crimes which
then transform into the real world.
IV: Discussion Questions:
 What was Scout’s first “crime” at school?
 Why did Mr. Cunningham’s mob leave?
 What evidence was given about Tom’s handicap? How is this evidence important
to his case?
 Reflect on Atticus’ closing remarks to the jury. Based on this statement and the
facts presented in the case, do you think a jury today would find Tom Robinson
guilty?
 Based on the rape trial that we read in George Chambers’ “The Trial,” how does
Atticus’ defense strategy differ?
 What stereotypes are confronted in the book? Can we still find those stereotypes
today?
 How have laws protecting against social injustice and ensuring civil rights
changed the way that the criminal justice system operates since this book?
 At the trial, we see how Atticus tries to protect his children from the ugly realities
of life by not letting them attend the trial. However, they sneak in and watch from
the “colored section.” Do you think that young people should be able to witness
criminal trials?
 Have issues of racism gotten better since the 1960s when this book was written?
Do you see issues of racism towards any other ethnic groups in America today?
EVALUATION PROCEDURES: After the completion of this unit, students will be
given a ten-question quiz to ensure that they have been keeping up on the assigned
readings. Students will identify factors of an offender that have an influence on them in
the criminal justice system. Comprehension of the information from this unit will also be
evaluated on the final exam.
MATERIALS AND AIDES:
Presentation of the Scottsboro Boys Trial found at
www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/scottsb.htm
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LESSON PLAN
COURSE TITLE: Criminal Justice in Literature
WEEK: 10
UNIT IV: Elements of an Offender
LESSON: 2
SPECIFIC TOPIC: Gender/Mental Status
Literature: “A Jury of Her Peers”; Of Mice and Men
INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL: This unit will allow students to examine the variables of
class, race, gender, age, and mental status in relation to crime.
Students will be expected to apply the criminological theories they learned in the first
half of the course in the readings.
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE: After completion of this lesson students will:
 List and define common “excuses” argued by defense attorney’s in court to
escape criminal culpability.
 Explain laws and court-accepted defenses (battered woman’s syndrome/common
law provocation) that are pertinent to abused women who murder their husbands.
RATIONALE: Students need to be aware of the factors of an offender that have an
influence on them in the criminal justice system. These factors may include, race, gender,
mental status, and the age of the offender.
LESSON CONTENT:
I: Gender- “A Jury of Her Peers”
History:
 Started as the play Trifles but was translated into a short story in 1917.
 When this was written women still could not serve on juries, nor did they have the
right to vote. It was not until 1975 that the U.S. Supreme Court found that
excluding women from juries was unconstitutional (Engel, 2003).
 By 1910, only 35 of 46 states had passed legislation classifying wife-beating as an
assault (Sigler, 1989).
 Glaspell used the real life case of State v. Hossack as inspiration for her story. In
this 1901 trial in Iowa, a farm wife was charged with killing her husband with a
hatchet while he slept. The wife plead not guilty to the charge and claimed that
she did not awaken quickly enough to determine who the real killer was. It was
found through the trial that her husband was abusive to both her and their
children. Mrs. Hossack’s original conviction was reversed and her retrial resulted
in a hung jury (Forell, 2008).
 Women during the time this story was written were confined to spheres deemed
‘appropriate’ for women (cooking, cleaning, sewing, taking care of children),
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while men operated in a completely different sphere (government, law, politics,
etc.) (Forell, 2008).
II: Court Excuses Relevant to Spousal Abuse:
 Common Law Provocation- Person becomes emotionally enraged by another
who intends to illicit that reaction, and thus loses their self-control and strikes out
at their tormentor. Most commonly used as an excuse for barroom brawls, but it
has been applied in recent cases to wives killing their husbands, or kids killing
their fathers, after years of physical and verbal abuse (Schmalleger, 2004).
 Extreme Emotional Disturbance- the emotional state of a person who has no
mental disease or defect that affects accountability, who is exposed to an
extremely unusual and overwhelming stress, and has an extreme emotional
reaction resulting in the loss of self-control and reasoning being overwhelmed by
intense feelings of anger, distress, grief, passion, excessive agitation (Y Jd
Drogin, & Marin, 2008).
 Battered Woman’s Defense- Battered woman syndrome was first proposed in
the 1970s. Four general characteristics of syndrome:
 Woman believes violence was her fault.
 Woman has an inability to place the responsibility for violence elsewhere
 Woman fears for her life and/or children’s lives
 Woman has an irrational belief that the abuser is omnipresent and
omniscient.
The woman’s perception of danger is more acute in a battering relationship and
they argue that a fear of severe bodily injury or imminent death cause the battered
woman to act in self-defense (Jacobs & Ogle, 2002).
III: Discussion Questions:
 Since women could not vote at the time this story was written, what is the
significance of the title?
 What is the significance of the females finding all the evidence, but not the
males?
 What defenses or “excuses” would have been applicable for Minnie?
 Glaspell never tells the reader whether Minnie’s husband physically abused her.
Does this make any difference in her defense?
 Does the killing of Minnie’s bird constitute as a situation where she would be
fearful for her own life?
 What is the significance of the change in Minnie’s stitching?
 What do you think the repeated images in the story of things being half-done
mean?
 If Minnie had gone to trial with an all male jury, do you think she would have still
been found “not guilty?”
158
IV: Mental Status in Of Mice and Men
History:
 Written in 1937, it was based on Steinbeck’s own experiences as a bindlestiff in
the 1920s
 Setting- Great Depression in the 1930s in the Salinas Valley of California.
 Second most frequently banned book in the 1990s because it was deemed vulgar
and offensive.
V: Court Excuses Relevant to Criminal Culpability
 Insanity: From a criminal law point of view, insanity has a legal definition and
not a medical one. It is a legal defense based on claims of mental illness or mental
incapacity (Schmalleger, 2004). There are rules to determine insanity in a court:
 M’Naghten Rule- based on the first man to be deemed not guilty of a crime
based on insanity in 1844 in Scotland. This rule asks whether or not the defendant
knew what he or she was doing or whether the defendant knew that what he or she
was doing was wrong. Burden to prove insanity falls on the defendant
(Schmalleger, 2004).
 Irresistible Impulse- defense that even though a defendant knew what they were
doing was wrong, they could not stop doing what they knew was wrong. These
people are said to suffer from an irresistible impulse. Not all states recognize this
defense. States that do not recognize this excuse as a defense, may allow it to be
considered during sentencing. Lorena Bobbitt was acquitted after successfully
employing this defense (Schmalleger, 2004).
 The Durham Rule- 1954 rule that states a person is not criminally responsible
for his or her behavior if the person’s illegal actions were a result of some mental
disease or defect. However, jurors need to be able to see that the criminal activity
in question was the product of mental deficiencies in the defendant (Schmalleger,
2004).
 Substantial Capacity Test- insanity defined as the lack of a substantial capacity
to control one’s behavior. The test requires a judgment that the defendant either
had, or lacked, the mental capacity needed to understand the wrongfulness of their
act, or to conform their behavior to the requirements of the law. It is the blending
of the M’Naghten Rule and irresistible impulse (Schmalleger, 2004).
 The Brawner Rule- 1972 ruling that places responsibility for deciding insanity
squarely with the jury. The jury determines whether the defendant could be justly
held responsible for the criminal act in the face of claims of insanity (U.S. v.
Brawner (1972)).
 Guilty but Mentally Ill- verdict that is equivalent to a finding of ‘guilty’ that
establishes the defendant, though mentally ill, was in sufficient possession of their
faculties to be morally blameworthy for what he or she did (Schmalleger, 2004).
159

Temporary Insanity- Widely used in the 1940s and 1950s, it is the claim that the
defendant was only insane at the time of the commission of the offense
(Schmalleger, 2004).
 Federal Law Insanity Defense- defined insanity defense as a condition in which
the defendant can show they have been suffering under a severe mental disease or
defect and as a result was unable to appreciate the nature and quality of the
wrongness of their acts (Insanity Defense Reform Act, 1984).
 Diminished Capacity- defense based on the claims that because of some defect
of reason or mental shortcoming, the defendant’s capacity to form the mens rea
required by a specific crime was impaired. This defense recognizes that the
defendant has a mental condition that is insufficient to exonerate them from the
crime, but maybe relevant to lessen the degree of the crime. In some jurisdictions,
very low intelligence, if proved well, can reduce first-degree murder to
manslaughter (Schmalleger, 2004).
 Mental Incompetence- A finding in a court that as a result of mental illness,
deficiency, or disability, the defendant is incapable of understanding the nature of
the proceedings or charges brought against them, or of aiding in their own defense
(Schmalleger, 2004).
VI: Discussion Questions
 How does the quest for the American Dream affect the characters in the story?
 Do you believe that Lennie can be held responsible for his criminal actions?
 What is the significance of the title of this book?
 Lennie seems sensitive by nature but shows violent streaks when George tells the
story of his future ranch. How does this statement add to the violence in the
novel?
 Do you believe that Lennie truly knew what he did was wrong, or was he simply
reacting to the fact that George would be mad at him?
 What is the significance of George letting go of the dream after Lennie is killed?
 Is George guilty of an even worse crime than Lennie?
EVALUATION PROCEDURES: After the completion of this unit, students will be
given a ten-question quiz to ensure that they have been keeping up with the assigned
reading. Comprehension of the information from this unit will also be evaluated on the
final exam.
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LESSON PLAN
COURSE TITLE: Criminal Justice in Literature
WEEK: 10
UNIT IV: Elements of an Offender
LESSON: 3
SPECIFIC TOPIC: Juvenile Delinquency
Literature: “How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and
Began My Life Over Again”; The Outsiders
INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL: This unit will allow students to examine the variables of
class, race, gender, age, and mental status in relation to crime.
Students will be expected to apply the criminological theories they learned in the first
half of the course in the readings.
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE: After completion of this lesson, students will:
 Compare laws of diminished capacity and responsibility with laws concerning
juveniles.
 Assess the concept of labeling theory and its affect on juvenile justice in relation
to the two works of literature that were read concerning juvenile delinquency.
RATIONALE: Students need to be aware of the factors of an offender that have an
influence on them in the criminal justice system. These factors may include, race, gender,
mental status, and the age of the offender.
LESSON CONTENT:
I: “How I Contemplated My Life …”
 Written in 1969
 Disjointed and disorganized format
 Reflects composition theory and the writing process and the use of writing as a
way of knowing
 The point of view in the story moves from the beginning narrator (the girl) to first
person (I) by the end of the story.
 It is a self-aware piece of metafiction that creates a realistic psychological portrait
of the 16 year-old girl who has experienced all these things.
II: Relevant Theories of Delinquency:
 Moral Development- Kohlberg (1981)- individual’s progress through 6 stages of
moral development that can be broken up into 3 levels. Preconventional,
Conventional, and Postconventional/Principled. Deviance is a result of interrupted
or incomplete development. Thus, a person in stage 2 sees his or her own needs
and feels that they do not get enough and may turn to deviance to ‘balance’ the
exchange (as cited in Whitehead & Lab, 2004).
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
Techniques of neutralization- Five ways that allow juveniles to accommodate
deviant behavior while maintaining a self-image as a conformist: Denial of
responsibility, denial of injury, denial of the victim, condemnation of the
condemners, and appeal to higher loyalties (Whitehead & Lab, 2004).
 Diminished Capacity- juveniles reasoning ability, maturity, and experience
levels are much lower than adults, thus they should not be held to the same
standards that an adult would when committing a crime (Whitehead & Lab,
2004). However, keep in mind that many courts do have the option of transferring
a juvenile case to adult court when the crime is serious enough.
 Previously discussed sociological theories can also be applied.
III: Discussion Questions:
 Why do you believe Oates chose to write the story in the format she did?
 The narrator of the story is from a rich family, does this surprise you that she
committed deviant acts?
 What gender bias is displayed through this story?
 Juvenile detention facilities are more focused on rehabilitation than incarceration,
yet the narrator is victimized while in the detention center. How can we work to
prevent this?
 How is the narrator labeled?
 Do you believe that the narrator will be able to rejoin society and live a ‘normal’
life?
IV: The Outsiders
 Written in 1967
 S.E. Hinton was only 16 when she wrote the book, and it was based on the people
she knew and the feelings she experienced growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
 Point of view- 1st person narration told from Ponyboy’s viewpoint.
 Main Themes: gang conflict, suicide by cop, labeling theory, social inequality.
Labeling Theory and ‘Outsiders’:
 Howard Becker (1963) explained that when a juvenile is labeled a delinquent,
they are thus labeled as an outsider. However, the person who is labeled as an
outsider may not accept the rule he is being judged by and will regard those who
judge him as either incompetent or illegitimate to do so. The rule breaker believes
it is not him or herself who are the outsiders, but rather the judges who are
outsiders.
Juvenile Gangs:
 Klein (1971) defines a juvenile gang as “any denotable adolescent group of
youngsters who are (a) perceived as a distinct aggregation by others in their
neighborhood, (b) recognize themselves as a group by usually having a group
name, and (c) have been involved in enough acts of delinquency to call forth the
negative response from their society and/or law enforcement agencies” (p. 13).
 Youths may join gangs to feel a sense of status, success, feelings of belonging,
and even love, that they are not getting from the larger society.
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

Research performed by Cloward & Ohlin (1960); Loeber & Farrington(1998); and
Thrasher (1936), has shown that the majority of gang members are from the inner
city, belong to the lower socioeconomic class, and lack familial support (as cited
in Whitehead & Lab, 2004). Younger members are often siblings or offspring of
current or past gang members.
 Wilding Gangs also exist. These are middle-class gangs that strike out at what
their members perceive to be inequalities and infringements on their rights by
other groups (Cummings, 1993).
Hinton attempts to explain in her novel why individual’s who commit the same acts
might be treated very differently. A juvenile can be treated differently when
committing a delinquent act based on power, resources, and who feels that they have
been harmed by the act.
Suicide by Cop- suicide method in which a person deliberately acts in a threatening
way, with the ultimate goal of provoking a lethal response from law enforcement
officers, such as being shot to death.
V: Discussion Questions:
 Before the last rumble, Ponyboy and his friends chant to each other “I am a
greaser, a JD, a hood. I blacken the name of our fair city . . . a menace to society .
. . victim of environment, underprivileged, rotten, no-count hood” (p. 136). How
do you think they came by this identity? Are these the labels that society has
constantly given them?
 Why do you think society labels lower-class juveniles as delinquents, but upperclass kids who commit the same crimes are simply “acting-out?”
 What criminological theories can be utilized to explain the delinquent acts in the
novel?
 What do you think is the significance of Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can
Stay” in the novel?
 Do you believe that the Socs were more of a menace and disgrace to society than
the Greasers were?
 How did labeling affect the characters in the novel?
 What factors drove Dally to commit suicide by cop? What does this action say
about how he saw himself?
 How did lack of parental supervision affect the characters and their actions?
 How would things have been different if Johnny and Ponyboy had not run away
from their crime?
EVALUATION PROCEDURES: After completion of this unit, students will be given a
ten-question quiz to ensure that they have been keeping up on the assigned reading.
Comprehension of the information presented in this unit will also be evaluated on the
final exam.
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MATERIALS AND AIDES:
“How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began my
Life Over Again” in Null set and other stories.-Handout
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READING QUIZ # 3
1. Compare and contrast the Scottsboro Boys Trial and the trial of Tom in To
Kill a Mockingbird. (ex., court, lawyers, charges, laws, etc.) Answers may vary.
2. Describe the ways the following objects function as symbols in To Kill A
Mockingbird: mockingbird, the mad dog, Camellias, the gun. Answer: The
mockingbird is a symbol of a harmless creature and a symbol for both Boo Radley
and Tom Robinson; mad dog- symbol of a community gone mad, or society gone
mad; Camellias- symbol of the old South and living in the past; the gun- symbol
of an abuse of power in Atticus’ view, and a means of power to the lynching mob.
3. What criminological theory/theories could be utilized to explain the behavior
of lynching mobs in the 1930s and the lynching mob in To Kill a
Mockingbird? Answers may vary: Criminological, Biological, frustrationaggression, etc.
4. You have been hired to serve as Minnie’s defense lawyer in her murder trial.
What defense excuse or justification would you offer? Argue your point.
Answers may include Battered Women’s Syndrome, Self-Defense, Common Law
Provocation, Extreme Emotional Disturbance, etc.
5. There are repeated images throughout “A Jury of Her Peers” of things being
half-done. How did Glaspell use these images as a metaphor? Answer: Used
as a metaphor for the incomplete nature of law and culture at the time the story
was written, and the separation of women’s spheres from men’s spheres.
6. Lennie has been transported to a modern courtroom to stand trial for the
murder of Curly’s wife, and you are serving on the jury. What is the best
defense for Lennie’s lawyers to argue, that will make you (the jury), hand
down a decision of ‘not-guilty’ of second-degree murder?
Answers will vary based on the student. There are many acceptable defense
strategies and the creativity in which they can argue their case will determine
approval of the answer.
7. How does the character’s quest for the “American Dream” in Of Mice and
Men contribute to their criminal acts and ultimate downfall? Answers:
George is always trying to get more money and stay in one place long enough to
get land of his own and become his own boss. Lennie accidentally kills Curly’s
wife because he does not want her yelling out and ruining his chance at taking
care of the rabbits with George. Curly’s wife flirts and makes trouble with the
men because she has dreams of leaving the Ranch and making it big somewhere,
etc.
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8. Explain how gender bias in the criminal justice system is displayed in “How I
Contemplated the World. . .”. Answer: narrator is labeled as a runaway,
delinquent, promiscuous, and wayward, and thus lives up to all of these
expectations.
9. Compare and contrast the concept of labeling theory in relation to its effect
on the characters actions in “How I Contemplated the World …” and The
Outsiders.
Answer: Outsiders performed delinquent acts because society already labeled
them that way and they were outsiders in their society.
10. How did external and internal expectations and pressures influence the
actions of the Soc’s and Greaser’s in the novel The Outsiders? Answer: The
Soc’s had no expectations placed on them by their parents- it was mentioned that
Bob just wanted someone to say ‘no’ to him. The Greasers were automatically
expected to be juvenile delinquents who caused all the trouble. Even Dally’s
death- he is described as dying violent, young, and desperate, just the way that
everyone expected him to die someday.
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LESSON PLAN
COURSE TITLE: Criminal Justice in Literature
WEEK: 12
UNIT V: Special Victims
LESSON: 1
SPECIFIC TOPIC: Animal Abuse
Literature: “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe
INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL: This unit will examine the topic of crimes perpetuated
against both the elderly and against animals within works of literature. Students will gain
a perspective on what makes crimes against these populations “special.”
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE: At the end of this lesson, students will:
 Explain types of animal abuse.
 Assess the link between domestic violence and animal abuse in real life.
 Compare and contrast the link between animal abuse and violence towards
humans in “A Jury of Her Peers,” Of Mice and Men, and “The Black Cat.”
RATIONALE: Within the study of crime and the victims of crime, it is important that
special attention be paid to crimes that are perpetuated against those who are more
vulnerable.
LESSON CONTENT:
I: Animal Abuse:
 The definition of animal abuse varies from state to state. Animals may be
physically, sexually, or psychologically abused. Animals may also be neglected.
There are issues in classifying animal abuse due to the fact that some societies
view some species as pets while others will view that same species as a pest
(Ascione, 2005).
 Frank Ascione (1993) defined animal abuse as “socially unacceptable behavior
that intentionally causes unnecessary pain, suffering, or distress to and/or the
death of an animal (p. 228).
 John Locke (1693) once wrote, “For the custom of tormenting and killing of
beasts, will, by degrees, harden their minds even towards men; and they who
delight in the suffering and destruction of inferior creatures, will not be apt to be
very compassionate, or benign to those of their own kind” (as cited in Ascione,
1993).
II: The Link Between Animal Abuse and Family Violence:
 Study by Merz-Perez, Heide, and Silverman (2001) found that 56% of
incarcerated violent offenders had abused animals in the past (as cited in Ascione,
2005).
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
Study by Ascione (1998) found that in a study of women seeking shelter at a safe
house, 71% of those having pets affirmed that their partner had threatened, hurt or
killed their companion animals, and 32% of those who were mothers had reported
that their children had hurt or killed their pets.
 Animal abuse is often an early warning sign of aggressive or antisocial behavior.
 Abusers batter animals for a number of reasons: the need to demonstrate power
and control over the family, to isolate the victim and children, to enforce
submission, to create an environment of fear, to prevent a victim from leaving or
coerce them to return, or as punishment (Forell, 2008).
 According to Ascione (2007), the sad truth is that battered women are eleven
times more likely to report that their domestic partners had physically abused a
pet than women with no abuse history (as cited in Forell, 2008).
III: “The Black Cat”
 This story is written from the perspective of the narrator the night before his
execution for the murder of his wife. By utilizing 1st person point of view, Poe
allows the reader to delve into the inner workings of the dark side of the mind.
 Poe portrayed the human capacity to indulge in and nurture perversity, while at
the same time insisting that the universe itself works towards justice.
 Edgar Allan Poe (1903) argues that the perverseness that causes the crime is the
“primitive impulse of the human heart” (as cited in Poe, H.L, 2008).
 Poe is the master of using symbols and they are very prevalent throughout the
story.
 This story is a psychological study of domestic violence and guilt. However, the
guilt the narrator’ experiences is not over the murder of his wife, but over the
murder of his cat Pluto.
IV: Discussion Questions:
 What is the significance of the cat’s name being Pluto?
 Poe never clearly states if the second cat in the story is a different cat, or the same
cat as the first. Is it the same cat?
 What is the connection between violence towards animals and domestic abuse in
this story?
 What is “Fiend Intemperance” in the story?
 How does the “Fiend Intemperance” contribute to the narrator’s increasing
violence?
 Do you believe that the narrator was crazy? Or were his actions in the story
simply ‘cause and effect’ like he claims?
 Think about the violence towards animals in “A Jury of Her Peers” and Of Mice
and Men. Was the abuse of the animals in these stories early warning signs of
greater violence to come?
 How essential is the setting to the story of “The Black Cat?” Could the story have
taken place anywhere else? How about anytime else?
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
How are the women in the stories of “The Black Cat” and “A Jury of Her Peers”
similar?
EVALUATION PROCEDURES: After completion of this unit, students will be given a
five-question quiz to ensure that they have been keeping up on the assigned readings.
Comprehension of the information presented in this unit will also be evaluated on the
final exam.
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LESSON PLAN
COURSE TITLE: Criminal Justice in Literature
WEEK: 13
UNIT V: Special Victims
LESSON: 2
SPECIFIC TOPIC: Crimes against the Elderly
Literature: “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe
INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL: This unit will examine the topic of crimes perpetuated
against both the elderly and against animals within works of literature. Students will gain
a perspective on what makes crimes against these populations “special.”
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE: At the completion of this lesson, students will:
 Define the legal definition of elder abuse
 Consider why the elderly need more protection than the average citizen does.
 Discuss current laws concerning elder abuse, and how we are combating this issue
in society.
RATIONALE: Within the study of crime and the victims of crime, it is important that
special attention be paid to crimes that are perpetuated against those who are more
vulnerable.
LESSON CONTENT:
I: Elder Abuse:
Definition: Elder abuse includes the following types of abuse: physical, sexual,
emotional or psychological, neglect, abandonment, and financial or material exploitation
(National Center on Elder Abuse [NCEA], 2007).
 The California Penal Code states, “crimes against elders and dependent adults are
deserving of special consideration and protection, not unlike the special
protections provided for minor children” (Cal. Penal Code § 368(a), 2007).
 The elderly are more commonly in a state of vulnerability due to mental and
physical weaknesses aggravated by old age, and, at times, medication.
 Reports have indicated that 1 to 2 million elderly people are victims of elder
abuse each year (Payne & Cikovic, 1995).
 Similar to domestic abuse cases, elder abuse is largely unreported.
 When the issue of elder abuse and neglect first surfaced it was considered a social
problem, and it was believed that the victims should have as little involvement
with the criminal justice system as possible. This idea changed in the late 1980s
and early 1990s when legislatures developed various policies that criminalized
elder abuse, including elder abuse statutes and mandatory reporting laws (Payne,
Berg, & Toussaint, 2001).
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II: “The Tell-Tale Heart”
 Published in 1843.
 It is believed that Poe received his inspiration for this story from the real life story
of the murder of Capt. Joseph White (82) while he slept in bed. The murder
occurred in Salem, Massachusetts on April 6, 1830, and at first, it seemed there
was no motive for the murder because the old man’s chest full of gold coins sat
untouched in his room (Wagner, 2010).
 Told from the first person perspective of the narrator telling his version of the
story after being caught for the murder of the old man.
 The narrator makes a point of insisting that he is not insane and tries to prove this
fact in the telling of his tale.
 Symbolism- beating heart= conscience/guilt, the old man’s eye- issues with
“inner vision” and the story being filtered through the narrator’s “hazy eye”; the
“watch” is a symbol of time, the movement of death coming closer, and taking
time back from the narrator.
 Imagery- this is language that appeals to the senses (hinge ‘creaking,’ describing
the sound of the heart as “low, dull, quick sound . . .like a watch makes when
enveloped in cotton”) (para. 9).
 Figurative Language- Simile’s, Metaphors, alliteration, all are used to make this
story stronger to the reader, and invites them to actually enter into the story
(Cummings, 2010).
 Repetition- used within this story to create emphasis (Cummings, 2010). Any
time that a word was repeated within the tale, it is used for stronger emphasis
(louder…louder…louder).
III: Discussion Questions:
 What reasoning does the narrator give for the murder of the old man?
 If the “evil eye” was truly the target of the narrator’s crime, then why did he not
simply pluck the eye out and leave the man alive?
 Do you think that the narrator’s defense lawyers could make a successful plea of
insanity?
 If it was a young man, instead of an old man, do you believe the narrator would
still have performed the crime?
 How does Poe portray the increasing madness of the narrator?
 Consider the final scenes from the police officers perspective instead of the
narrators’. Is it possible that the police knew all along that the narrator was guilty
of a crime and were simply using interrogation techniques with the narrator to get
him to reveal the location of the body?
 How does guilt play a vital role in this story?
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EVALUATION PROCEDURES: After completion of this unit, students will be given a
five-question quiz to ensure that they have been keeping up on the assigned readings.
Comprehension of the information presented in this unit will also be evaluated on the
final exam.
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READING QUIZ # 4
1. Explain some of the findings on the relationship of animal abuse with
domestic violence. How is this relationship evident in “The Black Cat” and
“A Jury of Her Peers”? Answers should include a mention of studies finding a
strong correlation between the abusive of a pet by a domestic partner, and
physical abuse by a domestic partner. Minnie’s husband killed her pet bird, the
narrator in “The Black Cat” abuses his animals, then his wife, and finally his
favorite black cat.
2. Define the following literary terms and give an example of each from one of
Poe’s short stories: symbolism, imagery, figurative language, repetition.
 Symbolism-representing the meaning of things by attributing symbolic
meanings to objects, events, or relationships= the watch is a symbol of
time or death.
 Imagery-language that appeals to the senses= “the hinges creaked”
 Figurative Language- It is whenever you describe something by
comparing it with something else. Simile=sound as a watch makes when
enveloped in cotton,, metaphor= simple dim ray, like the thread of the
spider;, or alliteration-hideous heart.
 Repetition- literary device used by the author to create stronger emphasis
(for example, the heart beat getting louder…louder…louder.
3. Do you believe that the law should view egregious animal abuse as a
mitigating factor when the animal’s owner responds violently? Use examples
from the literature we have read. Answer depends on the student’s beliefs.
However, they should back up their claims with strong literary support.
4. How did the police discover the crimes that were committed in “The TellTale Heart” and “The Black Cat”? Answer: Poe believed it was the universe
working to ensure justice, but more specifically- the black cat alerted the police to
the narrator’s wife’s body in “The Black Cat” and the narrator’s own guilty
conscience led him to reveal the body of the old man in “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
5. What makes animals, the elderly, and children “special victims” of crime,
and deserving of special consideration and protection? Answer= these
individuals are more vulnerable, mentally and physically, and thus more
susceptible to crimes being committed against them.
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LESSON PLAN
COURSE TITLE: Criminal Justice in Literature
WEEK: 14
UNIT VI: Crimes of the Future
LESSON: 1
SPECIFIC TOPIC: Where are we Heading?
Literature: 1984 by George Orwell
INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL: To allow students to study the importance of preventing
crime while still protecting the individual rights and anonymity of citizens in relation to
the technological advancements that will influence criminal justice in the future.
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE: At the end of this unit, students will:
 Describe current technological strategies utilized by law enforcement to combat
crime.
 Analyze current crime fighting strategies and address the issue of whether or not
they are a threat to individual freedoms and anonymity.
 Discuss the various security measures implemented by Homeland Security since
9/11 and assess their effectiveness of combating terrorism at the risk of
suspending personal freedoms.
RATIONALE: With the ever-increasing advancement of technology, new crimes are
constantly being created. The criminal justice system is constantly trying to advance their
technology to prevent crime before it happens. Through the examination of “futuristic”
literature such as George Orwell’s 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, students
can examine where the future of criminal justice might be heading, and the importance of
balancing the prevention of crime with the protection of individual rights and the
anonymity of the citizens it serves.
LESSON CONTENT:
I: Using Technology in Criminal Justice
 Electronic Eavesdropping- Rules against wire-tapping started in 1928 with the
court case of Olmstead v. U.S. where it was held that agents could legally tap a
phone line to gain information. Wires on agents to gain evidence was deemed
admissible under Berger v. U.S. as long as officers obtained a warrant based on
probable cause. From then on, the general ruling has been that if an agency wishes
to wiretap, plant a listening bug, or use any other form of electronic
eavesdropping, they need a warrant first (Schmalleger, 2004).
 Electronic Communications Privacy Act- Established in 1986, it established the
due process requirements that law enforcement officers must meet in order to
legally intercept wire communications. It has been recorded that in the year 2000,
1,190 wiretap requests were approved by federal and state judges, and around 2.1
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million conversations were intercepted by law enforcement agencies around the
country (Schmalleger, 2004).
 USA Patriot Act of 2001- This act made it easier for police investigators to
intercept many forms of electronic communication. It also allowed government
agencies to delay the notifications for searches of some electronic communication
(also referred to as “sneak and peek”). This also allowed for federal corrections
officials and select others to listen in on certain telephone communications
between jailed suspects accused of terrorism and their lawyers (as cited in
Schmalleger, 2004).
 “Big Brother” watching for criminals- video surveillance cameras are being
used in neighborhoods with face-recognition software to scan crowds for wanted
criminals. The FBI monitors email and web browsing. Car-rental companies and
even companies like OnStar can utilize global positioning satellites and to shut off
a car or determine whether a car is speeding. Even red-light cameras that capture
and issue citations for running red lights are a form of “big brother” surveillance.
There are many technologies being utilized by law enforcement agencies that can
be considered similar to “Big Brother” watching.
II: 1984 Background Information:
 Published in 1949 as a warning of the dangers of a totalitarian society.
 Dystopian novel written in third person limited narrative.
 Major themes of the novel include the evil of totalitarianism, the use of
propaganda by the government to determine what constitutes reality, the danger of
love being taken away from each other, and solely focusing it on the government,
poverty versus wealth, the dangers of utilizing technology without boundaries, as
well as the importance of language.
 Thoughtcrime- thinking against the party, having misgivings about the party,
doubting Big Brother, or questioning any Party action or “fact.”
 Thought Police- arm of the inner party; they seek out those who are against the
party, even those with the smallest thoughts against the Party or Big Brother.
They have the power to constantly monitor the population but one never knows
when they are being watched, thus forcing everyone to live as though they are
always being watched or listened to.
 Main Slogans- War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.
III: Discussion Questions:
 How does Orwell portray the importance of the written word?
 How is technology used in the book to enforce the law?
 Do you see any similarities between 1984 and current practices in law
enforcement?
 What do you think of when you hear “Big Brother”? Does this match the meaning
found in the novel?
 How does Orwell use contradictions in the novel to poke fun at the Party’s
governance?
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


Since 9/11, many policy changes have been made to ‘protect’ America from
future terrorist attacks. Do you see any similarities between this and the novel?
How does the government use psychological manipulation in the book to control
its citizens?
How does “rehabilitation” in the book, differ from the rehabilitation that the
criminal justice system tries to do today?
EVALUATION PROCEDURES: After completion of this unit, students will be given a
five-question quiz to ensure that they have been keeping up on the assigned readings.
Comprehension of the information presented in this unit will also be evaluated on the
final exam.
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READING QUIZ #5
1. Name some recent technological advancement's in law enforcement that
some worry might be an infringement upon individual freedom and
anonymity. Answers may include red-light cameras, the x-ray scanners for
vehicles and humans, etc.
2. What is the importance of language in relation to 1984? Do you think that
reading literature is important in today’s society? Knowledge is power in the
book, and the governing power is able to control the masses through the use of
language.
3. Compare and contrast the “rehabilitation” that Winston undergoes in the
book with current practices to rehabilitate criminal offenders. Answer should
include concepts of torture and brain washing in 1984 and how while we do not
practice rehabilitation techniques that are that intense, we do try psychologically
change the way offenders think, or help them through pharmaceutical drugs. Etc.
4. How essential is the setting in this story? Could the story have taken place in
any other time? Orwell’s story is so powerful because it spans across time. When
he chose the date of 1984, it was simply a date in the future. However, reader’s
today can still find aspects of his story that seem to be written specifically about
the time they live in.
5. When does 2+2=5? When the government says it does and everyone believes in
that truth.
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