Sociology of Crime and Punishment
SOC 231
PAC 104
Tues-Thurs 10:30-11:50am
Fall 2014
Instructor: Kerwin Kaye
Email: kkaye@wesleyan.edu
Office: PAC 105
Office Hours: Tuesdays 8-10am and by appointment
Class Description
This course begins with a critical overview of the rise of mass incarceration in the U.S. since
1973, while situating the present situation within a broader historical context. Following this, we
will review a number of theories of crime that sociologists have put forward, looking also at the
“uneven crime decline” that U.S. society has experienced since the mid-1990s. This focus
constitutes the first half of the course, and takes us up to the Fall Break. Following the break, the
course turns toward a series of distinct topics, all coordinated around themes of gender, race, and
class. Media images, ideas femininity in relation to street crime, issues pertaining to domestic
violence, and experiences of imprisonment will all be addressed. Lastly, we will examine drug
treatment courts, the topic of my own research. While a number of analytic questions regarding
criminality and crime control will be raised within the course (e.g., how has crime and crime
control changed over time, and how can we best account for these changes?), the question of
justice within the criminal justice system will remain a close focus throughout.
Course Requirements
There are five requirements for the class:
—attend all classes and be prepared to discuss the assigned readings
—five short response papers in relation to the reading (1-2 pages each)
—a short paper analyzing media depiction of crime (3-4 pages)
—a mid-term exam (in-class)
—a final paper — (8-10 pages; also an initial proposal, annotated bibliography, and
classroom presentation)
Response Papers are due the night before class, no later than 9pm
— the first response (to Michelle Alexander) paper is due Monday, September 8th
— you select the dates of the other four response papers
Grading
Class participation:
Five short response papers:
Media evaluation
Mid-term Exam:
Final Paper:
20%
5% (each)
20%
20%
35%
Key Dates
Monday, Sept. 8th (no later than 9pm): First Response Paper due
Thursday, September 18th: Topic Proposals for Final Paper due
Tuesday, October 14th: Annotated bibliography for final paper due (4-5 relevant sources)
Thursday, October 16th: Midterm
Thursday, October 30th: Media Evaluation Assignment Distributed
Thursday, November 20th: NO CLASS (professor at conference)
Tuesday, November 25th: Media Evaluation Due
Thursday, November 27th: NO CLASS (Thanksgiving Break)
Thursday, December 4th: Presentation of Final Papers
Friday, December 12th, 5pm: Final papers due
Paper Guidelines
All papers should be well organized and proof-read. Please double-space all of your papers,
and use one inch margins. Please use Times New Roman (12 point) as your font. If you
email me your paper, send it both as an attached file and with the text pasted into the
body of the email (in case I have difficulty with the attachment). Plagiarism will not be
excused; if in doubt, provide a citation.
Use of Electronic Devices within the Classroom
Use of electronic devices is not allowed. Permission will be granted in exceptional cases.
Disability Resources
I am happy to accommodate concerns regarding disabilities. Wesleyan also asks that the
following statement be included on all course syllabi:
Wesleyan University is committed to ensuring that all qualified students with disabilities
are afforded an equal opportunity to participate in and benefit from its programs and
services. To receive accommodations, a student must have a documented disability as
defined by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the ADA Amendments
Act of 2008, and provide documentation of the disability. Since accommodations may
require early planning and generally are not provided retroactively, please contact
Disability Resources as soon as possible.
If you believe that you need accommodations for a disability, please contact Dean Patey in
Disability Resources, located in North College, Room 021, or call 860-685-5581 for an
appointment to discuss your needs and the process for requesting accommodations.
Required Texts (available at Broad Street Books)
Alexander, Michelle. 2010. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness. The New Press: New York, NY.
Vitale, Alex. 2008. City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed
New York City Politics. NYU Press: New York, NY.
Kerman, Piper. 2011. Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison. Spiegel
& Grau: New York, NY.
Schedule and Assigned Readings
Week 1: Introduction, The Rise of Mass Incarceration
Tuesday, September 2nd:
Course Overview
Thursday, September 4th:
Flamm, Michael. 2005. Law and Order, pp. 1-7, 31-8, 51-2, 58-60, 162-3, 173-5,
181-5 (28 pgs)
Still image from the documentary Broken on All Sides
Michael Flamm
Week 2: Mass Incarceration and Race
Tuesday, September 9th:
Alexander, The New Jim Crow, pp. 1-57 (57 pgs)
First response paper due Monday, September 8th, no later than 9pm
Thursday, September 11th:
Alexander, The New Jim Crow, pp. 58-94, 173-208 (73 pgs)
Crowding in California Prisons
Michelle Alexander
Week 3: Explaining Mass Imprisonment
Tuesday, September 16th:
Wacquant, Loïc. 2009 [2001]. “Deadly Symbiosis: When Ghetto and Prison
Meet,” in Key Readings in Criminology, pp. 759-65 (6 pgs)
Vitale, City of Disorder, pp. 1-14, 29-53 (40 pgs)
Thursday, September 18th:
Vitale, City of Disorder, pp. 93-114, 115-24, 139-43, 183-94 (48 pgs)
Topic Proposals for Final Paper due
Loïc Wacquant
Harrisburg, PA
Alex Vitale
Week 4: Life Under Mass Incarceration
Tuesday, September 23rd:
Fine, Michelle et al. 2003. “‘Anything Can Happen with Police Around’: Urban
Youth Evaluate Strategies of Surveillance in Public Places,” Journal of
Social Issues, pp. 141-58 (15 pgs)
Rios, Victor. 2006. “The Hyper-Criminalization of Black and Latino Male Youth
in the Era of Mass Incarceration,” Souls, 8(2): 40-54 (13 pgs)
Clear, Todd. 2007. Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Make
Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse, pp. 121-48 (28 pgs)
Thursday, September 25th:
Goffman, Alice. 2014. On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, pp. 55-90,
195-204 (56 pgs)
Michelle Fine
Todd Clear
Victor Rios
Alice Goffman
Week 5: The Development of “Crime” / Theories of Crime I
Tuesday, September 30th:
Michalowski, Raymond. 1985. Order, Law, and Crime, pp. 49-84 (32 pgs)
Durkheim, Emile. 1964 [1893]. The Division of Labor in Society, The Free Press:
New York; pp. 70-80, 87-9 (14 pgs)
Thursday, October 2nd:
Shaw, Clifford, and Henry McKay. 2011 [1942]. “Juvenile Delinquency and
Urban Areas,” in Criminological Theory: Past to Present, 4th edition, pp.
98-104 (7 pgs)
Anderson, Elijah. 2011 [1994]. “The Code of the Street,” in Criminological
Theory: Past to Present, pp. 143-54 (12 pgs)
Kelling, George and Bratton, William. 2012 [1998]. “Declining Crime Rates,” in
Taking Sides, pp. 288-97 (9 pgs)
Merton, Robert. 1999 [1938]. “Social Structure and Anomie,” in Criminological
Theory: Past to Present, pp. 123-9 (7 pgs)
Bourgois, Philippe. 1996. “In Search of Masculinity,” British Journal of
Criminology, 36(3): 412-27 (14 pgs)
Émile Durkheim
Clifford Shaw
Robert Merton
Week 6: Theories of Crime II
Tuesday, October 7th:
Beccaria, Cesare. 1994 [1764]. “On Crimes and Punishments,” in Classics of
Criminology, Second Edition, pp. 277-86 (8 pgs)
Katz, Jack. 1988. Seductions of Crime, pp. 178-87 (10 pgs)
Pfohl, Stephen. 1994. Images of Deviance & Social Control, Second Edition, pp.
85-97 (11 pgs)
Robinson, Laurie and Jeff Slowikowski. 2011. “Scary and Ineffective,” The
Baltimore Sun, January 31 (2 pgs)
Thursday, October 9th:
Lemert, Edwin. 2011 [1952]. “Primary and Secondary Deviance,” in
Criminological Theory: Past to Present, pp. 249-52 (4 pgs)
Chambliss, William. 1973. “The Saints and the Roughnecks,” in Deviance: The
Interactionist Perspective, pp. 186-94 (9 pgs)
Braithwaite, John. 2011 [1989]. “Crime, Shame, and Reintegration,” in
Criminological Theory: Past to Present, pp. 253-61 (9 pgs)
Engels. Frederick. 1993 [1845]. “The Demoralization of the English Working
Class,” in Crime and Capitalism: Readings in Marxist Criminology; pp.
48-50 (3 pgs)
Currie, Elliot. 1997. “Crime in Market Society,” in Criminological Theory: Past
to Present, pp. 288-300 (12 pgs)
Websdale, Neil. 2001. Policing the Poor, pp. 150-9 (10 pgs).
Rios, Victor. 2012. “Stealing a Bag of Potato Chips and Other Crimes of
Resistance,” Contexts, 11(1): 48-53 (5 pgs)
Parenti, Christian. 2000. “Crime as Social Control,” Social Justice, 27(3): 43-9 (6
pgs)
Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)
William Chambliss
John Braithwaite
Week 7: Review and Midterm
Tuesday, October 14th:
Catch-up / Review
Annotated bibliography for final paper due (4-5 relevant sources)
Thursday, October 16th:
Midterm
Week 8: Media Representations I — Prison
Tuesday, October 21st:
NO CLASS — Fall break!
Thursday, October 23rd:
Kerman, Piper. 2011. Orange is the New Black (read entire book; focus on
descriptions of prison — for example, you can skip over material concerning
her personal life)
Week 9: Media Representations II — Crime as Moral Panic? / Central Park Jogger
Tuesday, October 28th:
Jimmie Reeves, 1998. “Re-Covering Racism: Crack Mothers, Reaganism, and
the Network News,” in Living Color: Race and Television in the United
States, pp. 97-117 (18 pgs)
Critcher, Chas. 2011. “For a Political Economy of Moral Panics,” Crime, Media,
Culture, pp. 259-75 (15 pgs)
Valverde, Mariana. 2006. Law and Order, pp. 96-107, 115-31 (29 pgs)
Thursday, October 30th:
Schanberg, Sydney. 2002. “A Journey Through the Tangled Case of the Central
Park Jogger,” Village Voice, November 19 (9 pgs)
Hancock, Lynnell. 2003. “Wolf Pack: The Press and the Central Park Jogger,”
Columbia Journalism Review, 41(5): 38-42 (5 pgs)
Smith, Valerie. 1994. “Split Affinities: The Case of Interracial Rape,” in
Theorizing Feminism: Parallel Trends in the Humanities and Social
Sciences, pp. 155-70 (14 pgs)
Little, Rivka Gewirtz. 2002. “Rage Before Race: How Feminists Faltered on the
Central Park Jogger Case,” Village Voice, October 15 (3 pgs)
Little, Rivka Gewirtz. 2002. “Across 110th Street: Changed Lives Among Central
Park Five Family Members,” Village Voice, November 5 (3 pgs)
Handout for Media Evaluation Assignment
Characters from Grand Auto Theft III
Week 10: Women as Offenders and as Victims
Tuesday, November 4th:
Odem, Mary. 1992. “Fallen Women and Thieving Ladies: Historical Approaches
to Women and Crime in the United States” (book review), Law & Social
Inquiry, 17(2): 351-61 (11 pgs)
Pollock, Joycelyn, and Sareta Davis. 2005. “The Continuing Myth of the Violent
Female Offender,” Criminal Justice Review, 30(1): 5-29 (22 pgs)
Miller, Jody. 1998. “Up It Up: Gender and the Accomplishment of Street
Robbery,” Criminology, 36(1): 37-66 (26 pgs)
Thursday, November 6th:
Esther Madriz. Nothing Bad Happens to Good Girls: Fear of Crime in Women’s
Lives, pp. 10-19, 34-41, 67-93, 147-50 (49 pgs)
Week 11: Conceptualizing Domestic Violence
Tuesday, November 11th:
Bumiller, Kristen. 2008. In An Abusive State: How Neoliberalism Appropriated
the Feminist Movement Against Sexual Violence, pp. 1-15 (15 pgs)
Donna Coker, “Crime Control and Feminist Law Reform in Domestic Violence
Law: A Critical Review,” Buffalo Criminal Law Review, 4: 801-60. No
need to read footnotes. (36 pgs)
Bhattacharjee, Anannya. 2002. “Private Fists and Public Force: Race, Gender,
and Surveillance,” in Policing the National Body, pp. 14-7 (3 pgs)
Thursday, November 13th:
Sokoloff, Natalie, and Ida Dupont. 2005. “Domestic Violence at the Intersections
of Race, Class, and Gender,” Violence Against Women, 11: 38-64 (22 pgs)
Dutton, Mary Ann. 1996. “Critique of the ‘Battered Woman Syndrome,” National
Online Resource Center on Violence Against Women (4 pgs)
Rothenberg, Bess. 2002. “The Success of the Battered Women Syndrome: An
Analysis of How Cultural Arguments Succeed,” Sociological Forum,
17(1): 81-103 (20 pgs)
Week 12: Prosecution
Tuesday, November 18th:
Davis, Angela. 2007. Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor,
pp. 3-41, 179-94 (55 pgs)
Thursday, November 20th:
NO CLASS — (conference presentation - American Society for Criminology)
Week 13: Imprisonment — Litigation and Supermax Prisons
Tuesday, November 25th:
Midgley, John. “Prison Litigation 1950-2000,” in Prison Nation: The
Warehousing of America’s Poor, pp. 281-300 (18 pgs)
Henningsen, Rodney, et al. 2011 [1999]. “Supermax Prisons: Panacea or
Desperation?” in Correctional Contexts, pp. 78-85 (7 pgs)
Stickrath, Thomas, and Gregory Bucholtz. 2006 [2003]. “Supermaximum
Security Prisons are Necessary,” in America’s Prisons: Opposing
Viewpoints, pp. 89-92 (4 pgs)
Rhodes, Lorna. 2002. “Psychopathy and the Face of Control in Supermax,”
Ethnography, 3(4): 442-66 (17 pgs)
Rhodes, Lorna. 2005. “Pathological Effects of the Supermaximum Prison,”
American Journal of Public Health, 95(10): 1692-5 (4 pgs)
Media Evaluation Due
Thursday, November 27th:
Thanksgiving Break
Week 14: Drug Courts / Class Presentations
Tuesday, December 2nd:
Tiger, Rebecca. 2011. “Drug Courts and the Logic of Coerced Treatment,”
Sociological Forum, 26(1): 169-82 (12 pgs)
Kaye, Kerwin. 2013. “Rehabilitating the ‘Drugs Lifestyle’: Criminal Justice,
Social Control, and the Cultivation of Agency,” Ethnography, 14(2): 20732 (43 pgs).
Thursday, December 4th:
Presentation of Final Paper Topics
Final papers due: Friday, December 12th, 5pm