Punishment and Society
SOC 3660 (100), Class #8659
Instructor Information
Instructor:
Office:
Email:
Phone number:
Office Hours:
Dr. Nicole Kaufman
105 Bentley Annex
kaufmann@ohio.edu
(740) 593-1372
Thursday 12:30-2:30
Class Information
Class Schedule: Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 2:00-2:55 PM
Location: 110 Bentley Hall
Credit hours: 3
Pre-requisite: SOC 2600
Required Readings:
 Packet at Copy Catz: 11 W Union St, Athens, OH 45701, (740) 249-4500
 Moore, Dawn. 2007. Criminal Artefacts. Vancouver: University of British Columbia
Press.
Note: the Moore book is on reserve at Alden Library. The book is located behind the
circulation desk.
Course Description:
This class examines official responses to law-breaking. Our class will mainly focus on
contemporary punishment practices in the United States, situated within a subset of highly
developed countries (i.e., Canada, Germany, France, and England). We will investigate the forms
and social conditions in which punishment occurs as we consider patterns in punishment from a
sociological standpoint. We will identify the multiple, variable rationales for these responses to
law-breaking. Further, we will study the origins of mass incarceration in the United States. We
will investigate the societal implications of these punishment patterns for heavily punished
populations as well as for economic mobility, access to health care, and democracy. Our
sociological approach will also draw on scholarship in legal studies, history, medicine, and
philosophy, as well as policy reports and activist materials.
Learning outcomes: After completing this course, students will be able to:
 Define and apply a definition of punishment
 Understand the components of penal codes/ punishment schemes
 Identify the forms of contemporary punishment and recognize internal variations within
states in the U.S.
 Recognize major populations experiencing punishment in the U.S. today
 Understand four major rationales for punishment: incapacitation, retribution,
rehabilitation, and deterrence
1






Recognize critiques of punishment practices, including from prison abolition activists and
transformative justice advocates
Understand the relevance of social forces and contexts in shaping punishment practices
Develop legal and sociological research skills through gathering information on one
penal code, punishment scheme, or grid and its social context
Develop critical thinking skills through the analysis of the chosen code/scheme
Compare alternative responses to the same behavior
Understand the presentation of arguments about punishment in key academic journals in
this area, including Criminology & Public Policy, Punishment & Society and Theoretical
Criminology
Responsibilities and Policies
Student Responsibilities: Students are expected to be familiar with Ohio University policies and
procedures. (See the Code of Conduct here: http://www.ohio.edu/communitystandards/). If a
situation arises that prevents the successful completion of this course, please note that it is each
student's responsibility to formally withdraw from this course.
Accessibility: Any student who suspects s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact
of a disability should contact the class instructor privately to discuss the student’s specific needs
and provide written documentation from the Office of Student Accessibility Services. If the
student is not yet registered as a student with a disability, s/he should contact the Office of
Student Accessibility Services in Baker at (740) 593-2620. It is best to request these
accommodations at the beginning if not before class so there is ample time to make the
accommodations.
Academic Integrity: Academic integrity an expectation in all OU classes and applies in this
class. Put simply, passing off another person’s work or ideas as your own will not be permitted.
The Ohio University Student Code of Conduct prohibits all forms of academic dishonesty,
including cheating, plagiarism, forgery, collusion, and furnishing false information to the
university. Students who fail to observe these standards are subject to disciplinary action: I will
reduce the grade of the assignment and report the incident to the student’s advisor and the Office
of Community Standards and Student Responsibility. Students may appeal academic sanctions
through the grade appeal process.
Attendance: Regular attendance is expected. Attendance is essential for doing well in
integrating the information in this course and for our discussions. Participating in in-class
activities accounts for 7 percent of the total grade. Although I do not take daily attendance,
students’ grade will be impacted if they are absent.
Normally, students who miss class should seek notes and materials from peers. In the event of an
excused absence for an emergency, authorized university activity, or military service/training,
please notify the instructor about your absence.
Sensitivity: The goal is for our classroom to be safe for everyone. Our discussions require an
environment of mutual respect. Differences in experience and how we identify make the
classroom rich. There may be times when you hear opinions that you do not agree with, in the
2
service of discussing complicated social issues. However, please notify me (the instructor) if you
feel uncomfortable with the way we are going about discussions or addressing the course
content.
Learner Responsibilities: As a student in this class, I expect you to:







Take responsibility for your own learning
Arrive in class prepared by having done the reading and being ready to take notes, reflect
aloud, and ask questions.
Treat others with tolerance and respect
Set high standards for your work
Check your OU student e-mail account every day
Keep electronic copies of all your assignments
Turn in written assignments both in hard copy and on Safe Assign via Blackboard.
Instructor Responsibilities: As your instructor, I commit to communicating openly and
frequently with you about this class. I will maintain a professional, safe learning environment
adhering to the policies of the college. You can expect a reply to communication, be it via email, voicemail, or in person, within 24-48 business hours.
It is my policy not to distribute power point slides from lecture. Please ask after class if you
missed something.
Syllabus Changes: As your instructor, I retain the right to make changes based on the timeline
of the class, feedback from learners, or logistical issues. I will inform you as soon as a change is
made.
Use of Electronic Devices: In order to minimize distractions, I expect that all devices will be off
and away during class.
Computing: Staying up to date on emails and the content of the Blackboard site are essential
parts of this course. Computer difficulties are not a long-term excuse for non-participation. If you
experience problems with your computer, call the computer help desk through Ohio IT at (740)
593-1222. They can talk you through fixing many problems.
A Blackboard course site has been created for this class. You can access this course by logging
in to blackboard.ohio.edu. This will be the place to follow your grade for the class. Written
assignments will also get turned in here via Safe Assign. If you have problems accessing our
course on Blackboard, please let me know. It is possible that Blackboard may have outages or
temporary failures.
Grading Policy
Appealing a grade: Please take 24 hours before speaking to me about a graded assignment or
exam score.
3
Revising graded written work: The written assignments build on one another. It is important to
do each step well to progress toward the final paper. For assignments #1-5, I will permit
revisions of writing assignments within two weeks of the return of the work to the student. I will
discuss this one-on-one.
Late Assignments: Writing assignments are due at the beginning of class in paper form and on
Safe Assign via Blackboard. Work is considered late when it does not meet these specifications.
For every day late, I will deduct 10% of the possible points for that assignment. Exceptions can
be granted in the case of a religious observation or emergency.
Exams: The exams will be based on comprehension of and critical thinking about the core ideas
presented both in readings and in class. I am looking at whether you understand crucial concepts,
especially those I will put on the term sheets you will receive leading up to each exam. The
exams will be multiple choice. One page (two-sided) of written notes will be allowed at the
exams. The final is not cumulative.
Extra credit: There will be a small number of extra credit assignments that will come up, for
example writing up reflections on an out-of-class experience related to punishment. All extra
credit work must be completed by December 5.
Final grades: The final grade for the semester is not negotiable, except in the case of a
calculation error.
Grade breakdown:
In-class activities
7% of the grade
Writing assignments
#1: What punishment scheme/code did you pick?
#2: Why is it punishment? What are the components?
#3: What forms of punishment are involved?
#4: Who is involved/implicated?
#5: What is the stated rationale?
#6: What do you interpret as the explanation for this
punishment practice? Consequences?
#7: Full paper
Exams
Exam 1 (units 1 and 2)
Exam 2 (unit 3)
Exam 3 (unit 4)
Exam 4 (unit 5)
4
9/10
9/17
10/1
10/22
11/10
3%
5%
5%
5%
8%
12/3
12/8
8%
15%
49% of the grade
9/22
10/15
11/12
12/8
11%
11%
11%
11%
44% of the grade
Grading:
Percentages on assignments and exams will translate to the following grades:
100-95 A
94-90 A89-87 B+
86-84 B
83-80 B79-77 C+
76-74 C
73-70 C69-67 D+
66-64 D
63-60 D59 or below F
Other helpful resources





Alden Library and OU Libraries. Park Place. www.library.ohiou.edu. Phone: 740-5932699. Assistance with finding resources for assignments for this class, especially in the
Learning Commons on the 2nd Floor (tech, writing, and research help).
Allen Student Help Center. Baker University Center, 4th Floor. www.ohio.edu/helpcenter.
Phone: 740-566-8888. Walk-in or by appointment. Assistance with study skills and
academic coaching.
Counseling and Psychological Services. Hudson Health Center, 3rd Floor.
www.ohio.edu/counseling. Phone: 740-593-1616. Confidential counseling and therapy.
Walk-ins for initial appointments. If you are experiencing a crisis after hours, the 24/7
Crisis Intervention Service number is 740-593-1616.
Student Accessibility Services. Baker University Center 348. www.ohio.edu/disabilities.
Phone: 740-593-2620. This office provides services and accommodations for students
with a disability.
Writing Center. Alden Library. Set up your appointment at http://ohio.mywconline.com.
Schedule (All readings are due on the day they are listed)
UNIT 1: WHAT IS PUNISHMENT?
Monday, August 25. Course overview.
Wednesday, Aug. 27. What is punishment? Considering recent examples of punishment.




Associated Press. 2012. “Anders Behring Breivik complains of ‘inhumane
conditions’ in prison.” The Guardian, November 9.
Koran, Mario. 2013. “Lost signals, disconnected lives. Concerns raised over
reliability of state’s GPS monitoring of offenders.” WisconsinWatch.org, March.
Pearce, Matt, Cindy Carcamo, and Maya Srikrishnan. 2014. “Arizona killer takes 2
hours to die, fueling lethal-injection debate.” LA Times, July 23.
McDonough, Katie. 2014. “First woman arrested under Tennessee law that
criminalizes pregnancy outcomes.” Salon, July 11.
Friday, Aug. 29. Defining punishment. Basic components of a penal code.

Walker, Nigel. 1991. Why Punish? Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 1-5.
5

Newman, Graeme. 1978. The Punishment Response. Philadelphia: The Lippincott
Company. Pp. 7-11.
UNIT 2: FORMS OF CONTEMPORARY PUNISHMENT
[NOTE: No class on Labor Day, September 1]
Wednesday, September 3. Overview of modern forms of punishment.

Spierenburg, Pieter. 1995. “The Body and the State in Early Modern Europe.” Pp. 4470 in The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western
Society, edited by Norval Morris and David J. Rothman. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Friday, Sept. 5. Capital punishment and variation in state practices.

Garland, David. 2010. Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of
Abolition. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Pp. 9-38 and
193-205 (endnotes follow).
Monday, Sept. 8. Legal research session.

Meet in Alden Library for a session on legal research with librarian Kelly Broughton.
This session provides tools needed to begin the semester-long assignment.
Wednesday, Sept. 10. Catchup.

Writing assignment # 1 due
Friday, Sept. 12: Banishment.

Beckett, Katherine and Steve Herbert. 2009. Banished: The New Social Control in
Urban America. New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 3-16 and pp. 37-61.
Monday, Sept. 15. Incarceration, fines, and community supervision.


Liptak, Adam. 2008. “Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations.’” New York
Times, April 23.
Subramanian, Ram and Alison Shames. 2013. “Sentencing and prison practices in
Germany and the Netherlands: Implications for the United States.” Vera Institute of
Justice, Center for Sentencing and Corrections. Pp. 3-19.
Wednesday, Sept. 17. Monetary sanctions.


Beckett, Katherine and Alexes Harris. “On cash and conviction: Monetary sanctions
as misguided policy.” Criminology & Public Policy 10(3):509-529 (references
follow).
Writing assignment #2 due
Friday, Sept. 19. Review of units 1 and 2.
6
Monday, Sept. 22. Exam 1 covering units 1 and 2.
UNIT 3: WHO IS PUNISHED IN THE CONTEMPORARY U.S.?
Wednesday, Sept. 24 Correctional population overview; fathers and punishment.


Glaze, Lauren E. and Erinn J. Herberman. 2013. “Correctional populations in the
United States, 2012.” U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs, Bureau
of Justice Statistics. NCJ 243936. December. NOTE: read pages 1-6 closely, then
read the remaining tables through the report.
Herman-Stahl, Mindy, Marni L. Kan, and Tasseli McKay. 2008. “Characteristics of
incarcerated fathers.” Part of a broader report prepared for U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services, September.
Friday, Sept. 26. Women and punishment.


La Vigne, Nancy, Lisa E. Brooks, and Tracey Shollenberger. 2009. “Women on the
outside: Understanding the experiences of female prisoners returning to Houston,
Texas.” Urban Institute Justice Policy Center, June. Pp. 1-17.
Alfred, M. V. and D. T. Chlup (2009). "Neoliberalism, Illiteracy, and Poverty:
Framing the Rise in Black Women's Incarceration." Western Journal of Black Studies
33(4):240-249.
Monday, Sept. 29. African Americans and punishment.

2008. “Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States.”
New York: Human Rights Watch. Pp. 9-29.
Wednesday, October 1. Prisoner reentry in Athens County.


Guest speaker Scott Zielinski from Athens County Reentry Task Force
Writing assignment #3 is due
[Note: No class on Friday, Oct. 3, Reading Day]
Monday, Oct. 6. Older Americans and punishment.


Fellner, Jamie. 2013. “Graying prisoners.” New York Times, August 18.
Williams, Brie, et al. “Being Old and Doing Time: Functional Impairment and
Adverse Experiences of Geriatric Female Prisoners.” Journal of the American
Geriatrics Society 54:702-707.
Wednesday, Oct. 8. Punishment and trans people; punishment and people with disabilities.


“Transgender prisoners in crisis.” Lambda Legal fact sheet.
Linhorst, Donald M., Leslie Bennett, and Tami McCutchen. 2003. “Practicing social
justice with persons with developmental disabilities who enter the criminal justice
system.” Social Thought 22(2/3):221-235.
7
Friday, Oct. 10. Catchup and discussion.
Monday, Oct. 13. Review unit 3.
Wednesday, Oct. 15. Exam 2 covering Unit 3.
UNIT 4: RATIONALES FOR PUNISHMENT
Friday, Oct. 17. Overview of punishment paradigms.

Cullen, Francis and Paul Gendreau. 2001. “From nothing works to what works:
Changing professional ideology in the 21st century.” The Prison Journal 81(3):313338.
Monday, Oct. 20. Incapacitation.

Lynch, Mona. 2002. “Selling ‘securityware’: Transformations in prison commodities
advertising, 1949-1999. Punishment & Society 4(3):305-319.
Wednesday, Oct. 22. Retribution.

Durkheim, Emile. “Crime and punishment.” Pp. 59-75 in Durkheim and the law,
edited by Steven Lukes and Andrew Scull. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Writing assignment #4 due.
Friday, Oct. 24. Retribution.

Culbert, Jennifer. 2001. “The Sacred Name of Pain: The Role of Victim Impact
Evidence in Death Penalty Sentencing Decisions.” Pp. 103 to 135 in Austin Sarat,
Ed., Pain, Death and the Law. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Monday, Oct. 27

Department of Rehabilitation and Correction guest speaker
Wednesday, Oct. 29. Deterrence.

Wright, Valerie. 2010. Deterrence in Criminal Justice: Evaluating Certainty vs.
Severity of Punishment.” The Sentencing Project, November.
Friday, Oct. 31. Rehabilitation: Introducing Criminal Artefacts.

Dawn Moore book Criminal Artefacts, pp. 1-5 and 18-23 (in the Introduction
chapter).
Monday, November 3. Rehabilitation through internal transformation; drug treatment courts.

Dawn Moore book Chapter 2 and 4.
Wednesday, Nov. 5. Rehabilitation and the idea of the addicted self.
8

Dawn Moore book Chapter 5 and 6.
Friday, Nov. 7. Library session on background research for punishment scheme assignments.
Monday, Nov. 10. Review unit 4.

Writing assignment #5 due.
Wednesday, Nov. 12. Exam 3 on Unit 4.
UNIT 5: EXPLANATIONS FOR PUNISHMENT; CONSEQUENCES OF
PUNISHMENT; AND ALTERNATIVES TO THE STATUS QUO
Explanations of Punishment
Friday, Nov. 14. Political and economic explanations for punishment practices.


Thompson, Heather Ann. 2010. “Why mass incarceration matters: Rethinking crisis,
decline, and transformation in postwar American history.” The Journal of American
History, December:703-734.
Prison Industrial Complex zine, found at:
http://issuu.com/projectnia/docs/the-pic-is-zine/19?e=0 (not in reader)
Monday, Nov. 17. Social control and racial domination explanations

Wacquant, Loïc. 2000. “The new ‘peculiar institution’: On the prison as a surrogate
ghetto.” Theoretical Criminology 4(3):377.
Consequences of punishment
Wednesday, Nov. 19. Legal sanctions.

Mukamal, Debbie A. and Paul N. Samuels. 2002-2003. “Statutory limitations on civil
rights of people with criminal records.” Fordham Urban Law Journal 1501-1518.
Friday, Nov. 21. Societal consequences of mass incarceration: Punishment and young adults


Comfort, Megan. 2012. “‘It was basically college to us’: Poverty, prison, and
emerging adulthood.” Journal of Poverty 16:308-322.
OR
Goffman, Alice. 2009. “On the run: Wanted men in a Philadelphia ghetto.” American
Sociological Review 74:339-357.
Monday, Nov. 24.

Department of Rehabilitation and Correction guest speaker
[Note: No class Wednesday or Friday for Thanksgiving holiday; office hours by appointment
this week]
9
Monday, December 1. Consequences of Mass Incarceration for Employment


Pager, Devah. 2003. “The mark of a criminal record.” American Journal of Sociology
108(5):937-975.
Look up and prepare to discuss a “ban the box” law passed in Illinois; Massachusetts;
Minnesota; Rhode Island; Hawaii; Philadelphia, PA; San Francisco, CA; Seattle,
WA; Baltimore, MD; Newark, NJ; or Buffalo, NY.
Wednesday, Dec. 3. Consequences of Mass Incarceration for Democracy



Western, Bruce. 2007. “The prison boom and the decline of American citizenship.”
Sociology 44:30-36.
OR
Uggen, Chris and Jeff Manza. 2004. “Lost voices: The civic and political views of
disenfranchised felons.” Pp. 165-204 in Imprisoning America: The social effects of
mass incarceration, edited by Mary Patillo, David Weiman, and Bruce Western.
Writing Assignment #6 due
Alternatives
Friday, Dec. 5. Discuss alternatives to the status quo. Recap unit 5.


Visit website http://alternativestopolicing.com/; listen to and prepare to discuss at
least four short audio clips describing “Chain Reaction.” (Note: not in reader)
Chrystalis Collective. “Beautiful, difficult, powerful: Ending sexual assault through
transformative justice.”
FINAL EXAM DATE: December 8, 12:20 PM. This exam will cover units.

Paper due at the final exam: full punishment scheme analysis paper. In addition
to the content of all the writing assignments, this paper must also compare a response
to similar behavior in another jurisdiction or another time.
10