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History 100D
Crime, Punishment, and Power in U.S. History
Fall 2022
UC Berkeley
Instructor: Prof. Rebecca McLennan
mclennan@berkeley.edu
Office Hours: Wed. 3-5pm, Zoom:
https://berkeley.zoom.us/j/8898999513?pwd=U
HE1Z1NNK0tmakduTzZBQ3RnSmhYQT09
Reader: Ms. Forogh Bashizada
Email: forogh@berkeley.edu
Office hours: TBA
This upper division lecture course explores the making of what social scientists call the American
criminal justice system—the modern complex of ideology, practices, agents, and institutions through
which the state claims and exercises a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence over people within its
borders. We’ll explore the controversial formation of this system, the particular interests and ideals it has
served (and failed to serve) over time, and the diverse array of social movements that have periodically
sought to constrain or redirect its colossal, life-altering powers. In the first half of the course, we’ll
examine three distinct spaces in which the material and ideological foundations of the American criminal
justice system were laid: the state prison of the 19th century; the industrializing city of the pre-Civil War
era; and the Southern slave plantation. From there, we’ll hopscotch through the late 19th and early-20th
centuries, identifying key moments and movements that fostered, challenged, and/or transformed the
ideology and practice of criminal justice. Turning, in the last few weeks of the semester, to the era of
deindustrialization (1970s to the present), we’ll ask how the U.S. moved from the reformist and
decarcerationist policies of the 1960s, when several of the largest states consciously set about reducing
prison populations and forging alternatives to carceral punishment, to our own era of mass incarceration,
“zero tolerance” policing, and serial drug wars.
History is rarely a straight or unbroken line from past to present, and the history of American criminal
justice is no exception. As we’ll discover, alternative practices of policing and correction or treatment
were politically viable and even quite popular in certain past eras. The established criminal justice
system became the object of critique and social mobilization in the “unfinished revolution” of post-Civil
War period known as Reconstruction (1865-1877), the Progressive Era (1890-1919), and the post-World
War II Civil Rights/Cold War Era. Such periods of social and intellectual ferment sparked the reform of
criminal justice—but not always in ways that critics intended. As well as exploring these earlier
moments of hope, possibility, and unintended consequence, we will conclude the course with a brief
exploration of criminal justice in our own time. In particular, we’ll consider some of the people and
movements that, since the beginning of the 21st century, have mobilized against “the unforgiving state”
to advance alternative visions—not only of criminal justice but of the kind of society that criminal
justice is supposed to serve.
COURSE FORMAT AND REQUIREMENTS
Attendance:
Attend all lectures, including guest lectures and debates. Roll will be taken in the first
two weeks and then randomly thereafter. BECAUSE WE HAVE A WAITING LIST,
YOU MUST ATTEND ALL LECTURES IN THE FIRST TWO WEEKS, AND WILL
BE DROPPED FROM THE CLASS IF YOU HAVE AN UNEXCUSED ABSENCE IN
THAT TIME. After that, more than three unexcused absences will be grounds for failing
the course. Note: Please do not attend lectures if you are experiencing Covid symptoms;
you will be excused.
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Discussions:
Unfortunately, there are no formal discussion sections for this course. However, because
most of us enjoy—and often learn the most in—interactive and collaborative settings,
we will be using three lecture slots to discuss and produce collaborative work.
Specifically, we will stage three Zoom debates (remotely), each about a particular
historical controversy. Participation in these live collaboration exercises is mandatory.
If for whatever reason you cannot attend, you must make up for the missed class with a
500-word mini-essay (to be assigned by the instructor). Instructions on what to read and
how to prepare for the debate will be posted to Assignments on bCourses.
Reading:
You must complete all the readings, which, together with the lectures, are the basis of
the exams. Most weeks, the reading load ranges between 100-150 pages. All readings
except Oshinsky, Worse Than Slavery are on bCourses or available electronically via the
UCB Library.
Worksheets (30%):
Prepare six worksheets for the live discussion/collaboration (two worksheets per debate,
due before class; 5% each (for a total of 30%). Makeup exercise: 500-word essay (one
per debate).
Midterm exam (30%):
Take home, open book: drawing on lectures and readings, answer three questions (one
on each of the three subunits in Unit 1 (Crucibles Of Modern American Criminal
Justice: The Prison, the Antebellum City, the Slave Plantation). Six choices.
Final exam (40%):
Take home, open book: drawing on lectures and readings, answer four questions (one or
two on Unit II (The Rise of the Criminological State); one or two on Unit III (From New
Deal Criminal Justice State to Mass Carceral Society); and one that integrates
knowledge from all three units). Eight choices.
Late work:
All assignments and exams must be submitted by the stated deadline. Students with DSP
letters must fulfill the requirements as outlined in their letter. There is a grace period of
one hour. But no extensions will be given beyond that except in case of documentable
illness or family emergency. Late assignments will be graded. However, one-third (1/3rd)
of a grade will be deducted for every day the work is past due. For example, you hand in
an assignment two days late. The instructor considers it an excellent piece of work,
worthy of a straight “A” but, under the late paper policy, deducts 1/3rd of a grade for
each late day and so gives it a B+.
SCHEDULE
1. Thurs. 8/25
Welcome, Introductions, and How the Course Works
Syllabus, course aims, and requirements
UNIT I
CRUCIBLES OF MODERN AMERICAN CRIMINAL JUSTICE
1. The State Prison
From Republican Penitentiary to Industrial State Prison
2. Tues. 8/30
Criminal Law’s American Revolution
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Lawrence Friedman, Crime and Punishment in American History, 1-15, 61- 66
Michael Meranze, “The Penitential Ideal in Late Eighteenth-Century
Philadelphia,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 108: 4
(Oct., 1984), pp. 419-450
3. Thurs. 9/1
The Republican Penitentiary: “A Surgery Upon the Soul”
Rebecca M. McLennan, The Crisis of Imprisonment, Intro., Ch. 1.
Friedman, Crime and Punishment, 77-82.
4. Tues. 9/6
Dialectics of the Carceral State, I
From Penitentiary to the Modern Prison and Contractual Penal Servitude
McLennan, The Crisis of Imprisonment, Chs. 2-3
5. Thurs. 9/8
6. Tues. 9/13
Dialectics of the Carceral State, II
Contesting Contractual Penal Servitude
McLennan, The Crisis of Imprisonment, Chs. 4-5
Room for Debate: Antebellum Reformers Debate the Separate (Pennsylvania)
System versus the Congregate (Auburn) System (of Incarceration)
Primary Source Set 1:
Beaumont and Tocqueville, On the Penitentiary System in the United States
and Its Application in France. Chapter 2
Beaumont and Tocqueville, “Conversation with Elam Lynds” (Warden, Sing
Sing Prison).
2. The Antebellum City:
Mobs, police, and trials of the century
7. Thurs. 9/15
Riot!: The Market Revolution, Social Unrest, and the Invention of “The Police” (or,
How an Adjective Became a Noun)
Friedman, Crime and Punishment, 107-116.
Paul Gilje, The Road to Mobocracy (2014), Chs. 1, 4-8.
8. Tues. 9/20
City of (Capitalist) Vice: The Sex Trade, the Market Revolution, and the Making of
Helen Jewett’s World.
Patricia Cline Cohen, The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a
Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century New York NB: This text is not available on
bCourses; please read via the UCB Library website here (Chs. 1-6, 11, and 13.)
9. Thurs. 9/22
Golden State, Imperial City: Crime, Law, and Policing in Northern California
Richard Maxwell Brown, “Vigilantism: The Conservative Mob,” in Brown,
Strain of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism
(1975) (selection: pp.93-112)
Nancy Taniguchi, Dirty Deeds: Land, Violence, and the 1856 San Francisco
Vigilance Committee (2016) (Introduction, Chs. 1-2).
10. Tues. 9/27
Room for Debate: Antebellum Vigilantism, San Francisco Style
Primary Source Document Set 2a: News reports on the San Francisco
Vigilance Committee of 1856
Primary Source Document Set 2b: Editorials
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3. The Slave Plantation and its Afterlives
11. Thurs. 9/29
12. Tues. 10/4
“A troublesome piece of goods” (Plato, c.350 BCE): Law and slavery
Friedman, Crime and Punishment, 1-54, 83-93.
State v Mann (1829)
After Slavery: The Black Codes and Reconstruction’s Battle for Equal Justice
Mississippi Black Codes
Friedman, Crime and Punishment, 93-100.
13. Thurs. 10/6
American Counterrevolution: The Birth of Jim Crow Criminal Justice
David Oshinsky, Worse Than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim
Crow Justice, Prologue, chs 1-6 (Borrow the ebook here; the Internet Archive
will require you to sign up for free subscription).
Friedman, Crime and Punishment, 187-189.
14. Tues. 10/11
NO CLASS—Midterm Exam—Online, 11:10am-12:30pm
15. Thurs. 10/13
Modern Racial Violence: Lynching, White Supremacy, and Jim Crow “Justice”
Equal Justice Initiative, Lynching in America, 27-63.
Ida B. Wells, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law In All Its Phases (selections).
Fabiola Cineas, “What an Anti-Lynching Law Means in 2022,” Vox, March 29,
2022
UNIT II
THE RISE OF THE CRIMINOLOGICAL STATE
16. Tues. 10/25
Making Citizens in the “Progressive Era”, 1895-1919: The New Penology
Elaine Freedman, “The New Criminology of Women,” in Their Sister’s Keepers.
Anthony M. Platt, “The Rise of the Child Saving Moment,” Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science 381 (Jan. 1969), 21-28
Peterman, Elements of Civil Government, Mississippi edition (school civics
primer)
17. Thurs. 10/27
Practices and Legacies of the New Penology
Douglas J. Flowe, “‘Come Home to Us Once More Again’: ‘Defective’ Status and
the Imprisonment of Young Black Men in Early Twentieth-Century New
York,” Journal of African American History 107: 1 (2022): 1–26.
McLennan, “Punishment's ‘Square Deal’: Prisoners and their Keepers in
1920s New York,” Journal of Urban History, 29: 5 (July 2003). 597-61
18. Tues. 11/1
Equal Protection of the Laws? Northern Criminal Justice and De Facto Segregation
Sidney L. Harring and Lorraine M. McMullin, “The Buffalo Police 1872—1900:
Labor Unrest, Political Power and the Creation of the Police Institution” (1975)
Douglas J. Flowe, “Drug-Mad Negroes”: African Americans, Drug Use, and the
Law in Progressive Era New York City,” The Journal of the Gilded Age and
Progressive Era, 20: 4, 503-522 (2021)
19. Thurs. 11/3
Guest Speaker: Sarah Lee, on race and policing in California’s Central Valley.
Jill Lepore, “The Invention of the Police” (2019)
Reis Thebault, “Fresno’s Mason-Dixon Line,” The Atlantic (Aug. 20, 2018).
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Reis Thebault and Alexandria Fuller, “The Bias in Fresno’s Justice System,” The
Atlantic (Aug. 24, 2018).
20. Tues. 11/8
Challenging Criminal Justice in the South: Scottsboro: An American Tragedy
James A. Miller, Susan D. Pennybacker, and Eve Rosenhaft, “Mother Ada Wright
and the International Campaign to Free the Scottsboro Boys, 1931-1934,”
American Historical Review 106: 2 (2001).
21. Thurs. 11/10
Substance Wars and State-Building: From the War on Alcohol to the War on
Marijuana
Lisa McGerr, War on Alcohol, Preface, Chs. 1, 3, 5-8 (Borrow the ebook here;
free subscription needed).
22. Tues. 11/8
Room for Debate: Harry Anslinger, Mass Media, and the First “War on Drugs”
(1930s)
Watch before class: Marihuana: Assassin of Youth
Read: Primary Source Set 3 (Anslinger articles)
Recommended (but not required): Martin A. Lee, Smoke Signals: A Social History
of Marijuana (2013), Part II: Prohibition (Borrow the ebook here; free
subscription needed).
UNIT III
FROM NEW DEAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE STATE
TO MASS CARCERAL SOCIETY
23. Thurs. 11/10
New Deal Criminal Justice and Its Discontents
Erving Goffman, “On the Characteristics of Total Institutions”
24. Tues. 11/15
The Crises of New Deal Criminal Justice
Heather Ann Thompson, “Lessons from Attica: From Prisoner Rebellion to
Mass Incarceration and Back”
Huey Newton, “Prison, Where is Thy Victory?
25. Thurs. 11/17
Backlash, I: Law and Order Politics, From Barry Goldwater ’64 to Johnson’s “War
on Poverty”
Elizabeth Hinton, “A War Within Our Own Boundaries”: Lyndon Johnson’s
Great Society and the Rise of the Carceral State” (2015)
Friedman, Crime and Punishment, 449–465.
26. Tues. 11/22
Backlash, II: Bipartisan Wars on Drugs—Nixon, Reagan, Clinton
Matthew D. Lassiter, “Impossible Criminals: The Suburban Imperatives of
America's War on Drugs” (2015) (pp. 126-140).
TBA
27. Thurs. 11/25
THANKSGIVING
28. Tues. 11/29
Mass Incarceration and the “Unforgiving State”: Carceral Expansionism, 1972-2010
Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag (2007) (Prologue, Chs 1-3).
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29. Thus. 12/01
Possible Futures: Guest speaker, Dr. Hillary Kunins, Director of Behavioral Health,
City of San Francisco.
Katherine Beckert, “Mass Incarceration and Its Discontents,” (2018)
Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (Seven Stories, 2003)
30. Mon. 12/5 – Fri. 12/10: NO CLASSES/READING AND REVIEW WEEK
Wed. Dec 14, 8:00A - 11:00A: FINAL EXAM (Take home, open book, online; due a/b/c): Due
Thursday, December 15, 5pm. (Should take 3 hours).
READINGS
• All but one of the readings are freely available on bCourses (in the Files section).
• David Oshinsky’s book, Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice.
(Free Press, 1997), is not available on bCourses or electronically from the library. However, hard copies
are on reserve at Moffitt Library, or you can purchase a used or new hard copy online.
CODE OF CONDUCT
The Code of Student Conduct applies in full to this course. Plagiarism is strictly prohibited. Please take a
moment to read about plagiarism, as it is among the most serious academic offenses, and students often
don’t realize they are plagiarizing!
Reproduced from the Berkeley Division of Student Affairs website, here:
Plagiarism, has serious consequences.
Faculty and GSI’s take plagiarism seriously and are often proactive when it comes to holding
students accountable for violating the academic integrity policy. In many cases, students aren’t even
aware they are plagiarizing!
Plagiarism Defined:
UC Berkeley’s Code of Student Conduct defines plagiarism as the use of intellectual material
produced by another person without acknowledging its source.
Common Examples: Student have…
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Directly copied passages of works from others directly into their homework, essay, term paper,
or dissertation without acknowledgment.
 Used the views, opinions, or insights of another without acknowledgment.
 Paraphrased another person’s characteristic or original phraseology, metaphor, or other
literary device without acknowledgment.
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How to Avoid Plagiarizing: A Quick Summary
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Any work submitted should be your own individual thoughts, and should not have been
submitted for credit in another course unless you have prior written permission to re-use it in this
course from this instructor.
 All assignments must use "proper attribution," meaning that you have identified the original
source and extent or words or ideas that you reproduce or use in your assignment. This includes
drafts and homework assignments!
 If you are unclear about expectations, ask your instructor or GSI.
 Do not collaborate or work with other students on assignments or projects unless you have been
given permission or instruction to do so.